Shifti - User contributions [en]

What Happens In Vegas

2012-08-24T07:56:20Z

Devin:

{{page type|fiction}}
{{byline|author=Star Raccoon
|user=StarRaccoon}}
{{TF Type|Animal}}{{TF Type|Gender}}{{TF Degree|Anthro}}{{TF Species|Raccoon}}

1.

Las Vegas was the most logical place for a wizard bar. Or a whole resort, really, since the day magic returned to the world. Sam hit the resort first. He figured that by staying downtown he'd save on the exorbitant price of actually staying at the Dream. There was only so much you could do at the Dream, though, without renting a room to sleep in. The Witching Hour nightclub wasn't open yet, he'd seen his share of gift shops, and the glamoured decorations on the slot machines didn't make them any luckier. So Sam sat down at one of the blackjack tables and worked up the nerve to ask a question. "Where do the local magic-users go?"

The dealer looked him over with a wary eye. The employees were on guard against someone who had even a trace of the gift, like Sam; he might conjure extra aces or something. The dealer said, "For what? Gaming? Supplies?"

Sam shrugged, not really certain. "Just to meet people."

The dealer's rabbit ears perked up. Sam tried to figure out whether he'd gotten them accidentally. Only some of the workers here had been changed, and there was no clear theme. It was too early in magic Vegas' history for someone to try deliberately having everyone be wolves or something. "Well, sir, you might try the Unreachable Flask, a couple miles east on Tropicana. The mages at UNLV hang out there."

"College crowd?" Sam looked at his cards, hit, and busted.

"They're friendly enough. Just don't go if you can't control yourself after a few drinks. There's enough firepower there to turn you into a newt if you get out of line. Your bet, sir?"

Sam hurried through another few hands and found he was up forty dollars. He grinned and tipped the dealer, then stood up.

"Thank you sir. But if you do go... Don't make a fool of yourself. Us locals like having a place where people don't act like tourists."

2.

So Sam caught a taxi to get east of the Strip, just as the sun set. The casinos began to glow in their own colors and styles. The newly refitted pyramid of Luxor hovered just above the ground, its black glass sides sending a beam of light into the sky. Sam stared out of the windows and only gradually noticed that there was a city beyond the Strip. A college stadium, apartment buildings, and a bar that didn't float or burn with green flames or change its shape. As far as Sam could tell it was a pre-magic establishment, or one that didn't want to advertise much. By Vegas standards anyway. A blinking neon sign showed a hand reaching for a flask.

He walked inside and grinned. "Nice place." The bar was only a little smoky and the people, varied. A cheer went up from a pool table where some guys in silly robes were playing without sticks, just pointing at the cue ball to make it move. The bartender was a fur-covered fox woman who juggled bottles while balancing one between her pointed ears. Sam tried not to step on a gnome running underfoot. A fairy swerved past his head and chased the gnome, calling, "Hey!"

Sam hesitated in the doorway. The bartender gave him a smile and said, "Don't be shy!" He started moving again and looked for a free table. There was one across the room... and near a distraction.

Sam had admitted to his friends that the furry types, people who'd been transformed and gone part-animal, could be pretty attractive. Here was a great example, one that made him duck into the seat and hide his blush behind a menu. A few tables away was a dim corner where a raccoon-woman sat. Sometimes this kind of change was just ears and a tail on an otherwise human body, but she'd gone all the way and was somehow cuter for it. Black round nose, whiskers, a fur-masked face, and the hint of a ringed tail dangling beside her. Sam could hardly pay attention to the menu. When the waiter showed up, he picked a sandwich at random.

The waiter said, "New in town? Haven't seen you before."

"Just visiting."

"Really? I can tell you've got the gift. This town's a great place to study it."

"I'll keep it in mind," Sam said, though really he couldn't do much. Supernatural first aid, as part of an ambulance crew. It wasn't exactly mighty wizardry.

The waiter nodded and walked off, but when he brought Sam his drink he added, "She's single, by the way."

Sam had to take a few sips before he could even think about going to talk to the coongirl. When he walked over to her he forgot what he was going to say. "Uh. Sam! Hi. I'm Sam."

"Rena. Not to be confused with Reno. What's up?"

Sam coughed into one fist. "I was just looking around. A dealer at the Dream said this was a place where the locals hang out."

"Really? It's odd to have anyone send a tourist here. Guess you've got the gift, or you're persuasive. Have a seat?"

Sam blushed, grabbed his drink, and slid into the booth with the coongirl. Then he noticed something. She didn't show it much above the table, but those curves weren't just raccoonish pudge. The woman was around halfway through pregnancy.

"Disappointed?" said Rena, giving him a grin.

Sam collected his thoughts. The truth was -- "I'm here to relax and sightsee, not so much to carouse. I can always go to one of the showgirl places later." He'd faintly been hoping to take someone back to his hotel room, but he wasn't half charming enough. Best to enjoy some friendly conversation with her instead.

"Are you a magic user?" Rena asked.

"A little." He told her about using the art alongside regular medicine to stop bleeding and dull pain. "Just to get people into the hands of someone more competent."

"Nice. I'm working on my thesis at UNLV. I'll get one of the first ever masters' degrees on magery."

"If I may ask..."

"The raccoon thing? Lab accident. I like it though, ever since learning a flea repellant spell to go with the fur." She stretched out, grunted faintly, and rested her hands on the nearly hidden curve of her belly. "As for this, it was an unrelated kind of lab accident. I'm not with that creep anymore, but I'm stuck with the consequences."

"Sorry to hear it."

She gave a fragile smile. "No you're not. You're happy I'm single."

Sam looked down into his glass. "How about if I promise not to hit on you? I'm fine with just talking shop, if it'll make you feel better. Or I can leave."

She sighed. "No, stay. It's just frustrating, is all. I'm sure I'll fall instantly in love with the kid like everyone assures me. I'm not feeling it so far, what with all the pressure to finish my degree before I'm occupied with being a single parent."

"Must be tough." Sam was glad for the distraction when the waiter came back and brought Rena a burger, a gigantic basket of fries, and extra pickles. He grinned.

"Oh, hush," Rena said, smiling through a muzzle full of pickles. "I liked them already and I'm allowed to do stupid stereotypical things when I'm not teaching freshman biology."

"I didn't say anything."

They ate, and talked about magic and life in the city. Rena seemed to be working up to saying something. "Say... did you know there's such a thing as a temporary transformation? It's my thesis topic. Has a lot of implications for medicine."

"I didn't know it was possible. You get hit with a poorly made spell or just raw power or bad luck, and you end up as an animal or a tree or a statue."

Rena pointed at him with a french fry. "That's with a ''bad'' spell. If you do it right it's a lot easier to control. Any interest in being a test subject?"

Sam blinked and felt his skin go clammy. "Deliberately? Isn't that dangerous?"

"It's safe if you limit the duration. You could even end up healthier than before, with the way the spell restores you to your stored body pattern at the end." She giggled at something. "Among other things it wipes out any hangover you might have."

Sam looked at her fur, listened to the flick of her tail against the booth. "I hadn't considered going furry myself. I do like the look, though. And some people are paying for just the illusion of it here, or for dreams about it. Is that what this is?"

"Nope. True physical change."

"And what kind of form would you have in mind?"

"The easiest one to do: a copy of the caster's form. So... raccoon girl."

They sat there blushing at each other for a minute. Sam sputtered something. Rena scratched one of her ears and said, "Okay, uh... I've been wanting to test out my techniques outside of the college's formal system. You seem like you might enjoy it. We'd get to hang out tomorrow, and you wouldn't need to worry about hitting on me. Twenty-four hours of getting to be something different, for free. Interested?"

Still feeling in shock, Sam said, "In being a coongirl."

Her ears drooped. "Forget I said anything."

"No, no. It's just surprising. I..." Sam thought about his plans for tomorrow: just cruising the casinos, maybe splurging for one of the Dream's imaginary vacations. Why not have a magical experience for real, for free, even if it meant some really weird things? "I'd like to try it."

Rena perked up instantly. "Great! If you're willing, hold out your hands."

Sam hesitated, then put his hands on the table, next to the fries. He told himself it was harmless fun. Rena reached out and took his hands in both of hers, letting him feel the warmth of them and the faint press of claws. Then came the rush that magic always gave him, flowing from her through his whole body like hot water. There was no chanting, no glow, just the coongirl's reassuring touch. "Is that all?" he said. "It must not have worked."

Rena squeezed his hands before letting go. "Oh, I'm pretty sure it worked. It just takes a while to kick in, usually after a night's sleep. We should meet up tomorrow whenever you're awake and done panicking."

"Panicking? Should I?"

"No, but you can guess what to expect, and a guy might have trouble adjusting." Rena clinked their drinks together. "Don't worry. It'll be a little adventure for you. And you know the tourism slogan, right? What happens in Vegas, stays here."

Sam fretted about how tomorrow would go, but it was the best dinner he'd had in a long time. Rena knew more theory than he did, and loved hearing about his work in practical medicine. There was no need to make a date out of their friendly meal. When it was time to go, he offered her a hand up and she stood, giving him a fresh look at that strange body -- one starting to blossom into motherhood.

"Thanks for a wonderful evening," he said.

3.

The dreams were stranger than the kind you could buy. He was running through a forest, pursued; he was trying on his outfit for a high school prom and hardly noticed it was a dress; he was brushing out someone's tail and feeling like it was attached to him. Sam woke up panting and sweaty. It was too hot under all these covers! He threw off the blanket and the thin sheet and tried to get that third covering off of him too... Instead he felt his fingers rippling over soft fur.

He woke up instantly, eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. He was thinking, "This is that day. I agreed to be a raccoon lady today." Slowly he looked down at himself, taking deep breaths, and felt around. Gray fur covered most of the curve of his breasts. His hands were fuzzy and ended in little claws. Sam poked at his face and found the muzzle in the middle of his vision. When he talked, it was with someone else's voice. None of this body was part of him! He shuddered and stood up slowly. He felt nauseous at the thought of everything being so wrong. But he forced himself to calm down, to tell himself: "I agreed to this. It's supposed to be fun. Just for a day." A few more deep breaths. After a while he started to get used to how each breath felt in this new body, how it made his breasts heave slightly. "I can cope with this. Half the people alive do it every day."

He picked up the phone with a smaller hand than he was used to, cleared his throat, and called Rena. "I'm done panicking."

A giggle. "Oh, wow, it worked. How about I pick you up in half an hour for breakfast? My treat."

Sam said, "In public?"

"Well, yeah! You're not going to hide all day, are you?"

Sam decided not to shower this morning, since he had no idea how long it'd take to dry out all this fur. His tail kept surprising him. The thing snaked behind him and did strange things to his sense of balance. Getting dressed was tricky because of it. He ended up wearing his pants low in the back, and pulling on a long t-shirt to hang down over his waist. He needed the loose shirt after trying on one of his nicer ones, and finding how tightly it pulled over his chest. Even the t-shirt stretched enough to outline those heavy breasts so that everyone would end up staring at them. He couldn't quit looking at them in the mirror himself. It was strange to see them from this angle! And the way they felt against the fabric, against his fingers...

A knock on the door. Sam answered it, blushing. Rena was there with a huge grin. "Wow. I'm actually a little jealous."

Sam felt his blush deepen. "I probably look like your sister."

"My sister's still human, so you're cuter. Come on; Luxor's buffet is the best and I'm starved."

Sam tried not to make eye contact with anyone they passed in the hotel hallway. They were staring at him. He just knew it.

"How is it?" said Rena. "Any observations from a medical perspective?"

"It's a new way of looking at things, I'll say. Everything's taller... How are you walking faster than me?"

Rena stopped and turned, one hand on her belly. "Ha! I bet you're walking wrong. Take a few steps." Sam did, and she grinned. "Let yourself sway more. It's how you're built."

Sam tried heading farther down the hall, feeling himself swing and wiggle his hips with every step. He started to complain, but Rena said, "There, that's better. Perfectly normal, and I hear it's fun to watch."

"Not when it's yourself!"

Rena passed him and tweaked his tail. "What, you're not attracted to a shapely raccoon-girl butt? Those instincts must've kicked in fast!" Sam was so busy sputtering in protest that he forgot how he was walking, which was probably the point.

Everything felt new and different this morning. Sam rode with her to the great hovering black pyramid for breakfast, where even the food smelled more vivid. He kept holding bits of fruit to his big nose before eating them. Eventually he stood up and headed for the bathrooms. Rena piped up, "Remember which one!" around a mouthful of waffles and ice cream.

Sam came back looking shaken. "Still okay?" said Rena with a more serious look.

"Different," said Sam. "So... have you ever gone through this yourself? Been a coon-man?"

"No, but remember I was human before I grew all this fur. I guess it'd be fun to try sometime, if I had someone to walk me through it. Even they gave me as much grief as I'm giving you."

"You're not..."

"Admit it!"

Sam grinned. "Yes. If I were your sex-swap coach I'd probably taunt you about any outbreak of macho instinct I spotted in you. Probably get you to go shirtless by the pool."

"Ooh. Can I talk you into borrowing a bikini and lounging out there?"

Sam thought about it. "I don't think I'll get another chance to fill one out this well."

So they went. It felt wonderful to plunge into the hotel pool and feel the cool water play all over his body, tickling his fur and the skin beneath it. He struggled to keep afloat with the water weighing him down, then climbed out and found a shaded beach chair to sprawl on. His bikini top tugged his breasts close and it felt like he had almost nothing on below it. After a few minutes of Rena's questions and teasing he managed to stop caring, and to enjoy the feel of all his curves.

"Was he staring at me?" Sam asked Rena. He hoped that man in the green trunks didn't come over to talk.

Rena said, "Are you kidding? He was checking ''me'' out."

Sam stuck his tongue out at her. The two of them chatted about nothing, on and on.

4.

There was lunch, and walking around the UNLV campus, and watching the dolphins at the Mirage together, winning cash at blackjack, and dinner at a pizza shop that tourists didn't know about. Sam didn't much care where she took him. There was food and endless sights to see, and their whole lives to talk about. But somehow time passed despite his wishes, and he found himself standing outside his downtown hotel. Being dropped off.

Sam had just handed her some money for gas, and that turned into the two of them holding each other's hands, smiling nervously. "I guess it's about that time," Sam said. "My flight's tomorrow afternoon, and this crazy spell must be wearing off soon."

Rena nodded. "I, uh... I'm not attracted to girls, you know."

"What? I didn't think you were."

She looked away for a moment, then back at him. "Just didn't want you to get the wrong impression. If you're going away, I mean. I had a wonderful time. Not because of the silly magic experiment, but because you were just fun to hang around with."

"Yeah." He had to say more than that, of course. "Can't say the girl part of it was something I'd repeat, but being with you made it fun. I would never have done half of that stuff without you there."

Rena twitched her nose uncertainly. "Part of why I was interested in you -- in talking with you, I mean -- was that you've got magic of your own, for medicine. There was something I was wondering about. You know that spell that paramedics use to slow down an injured person, don't you? Like partial suspended animation?"

"It was part of my training, yeah. What about it?"

She took his hand and rested it on her curved belly. "This. I'm a little scared of what's happening to me, and I need to finish this degree before I can do anything else. I need to slow things down."

Sam hardly heard her. His delicate fingers were splayed across where he'd expected to feel soft flab. Instead, Rena was firm and tight like a drum, warm and fuzzy against his clawtips. What amazed him most was the thought that as big as she was, she had a long while to go.

She must have seen his expression. "Yeah, yeah, the miracle of birth. You get used to it after a while and either want it done with, or just to hold off until your mind and your life catch up and get you ready to be..."

"A mother?"

She nodded, blushing. "Do you think you could do this for me? If you can't, I understand."

Sam thought carefully. "I've heard of something like this being done, and I've done the spell a dozen times. Are you sure about this, though? Slowing down your pregnancy would mean being stuck like this for around twice as long. You said you're nearly four months in, right? Could you stand another ten-plus months instead of five?"

"Can't say I'm looking forward to the weight and all, but..." She slid her hands around her stomach, with her ears flicking this way and that. "I do kind of like having my baby around, more than I'd like to admit. Grows on you. I just need time to get things done so that I don't end up secretly resenting the kid."

"If that's really what you want, then I'll try it on you. We're at my hotel, so..." He blushed.

"Your room, yeah."

Soon, Rena lay on her back, on Sam's bed, still dressed. She unbuttoned her blouse to leave her belly exposed, with grey fuzz arching up proudly. Sam studied his training materials again, crouched beside her, and began to work. His hands rubbed over her stomach. The whole time, he was trying to think of this job as just medical practice, helping out a person in need who he'd never see again. It was true, right? But touching Rena sent shivers of excitement through him and gave him the new feeling of his chest tingling, poking out against his shirt. Sam blushed and hoped Rena wouldn't notice. She was warm and fuzzy and wonderful against his fingers.

"Is it working?" she said.

Sam concentrated on the spell. He could feel the energy of it flow from him into Rena and her baby, easing their instinctive need to grow, to bloom so quickly. He sensed them as carefully as he could, then nodded. "It should work. You're going to be stuck like this for a while."

Rena propped herself up on her elbows and gave a nervous smile. "Mmm. You're good at this. Mind if I stick around for a while? The spell on you should be wearing off soon."

Sam's heart was beating quickly, he realized. Stress from his worries about the work on Rena. He held one hand against his chest and felt the breast hanging there. "It's been fun."

The raccoon-girl leaned up to kiss him on the nose. "If you're ever in town again, stop by."

"Are you hungry? There's an all-night cafe downstairs."

"Always am. Bring me something? I feel like staying here."

Sam wriggled his whiskers nervously. "So... we'll eat up here in my room, while you watch me turn back?" He wondered if she could see him blushing under his fur. Right now he wasn't equipped for it, but if Rena was eager to stick around until he was a guy again, this night might get more interesting than he'd planned. Rena was grinning up at him. "You don't have to, uh, thank me in any particular way. Really, don't feel obligated. You showed me a great time."

She stretched out luxuriously on his bed. Sam had to admit she was... beautiful? Was that the right word? Right now he was missing some of the usual hormones to distract him from her mind, from how they'd been talking all day and enjoying just being around each other. She was smart and witty and playful and ambitious in a way he'd never seen in a woman before, not in someone who'd give him the time of day. "Let's think about it," Rena said. "Get us some chicken, okay?"

Sam headed downstairs to get some take-out food. He had a plane ticket out of town for tomorrow, and was starting to regret it. While sitting at the cafe counter he realized that this was just about the first time he'd been alone all day. Usually he needed a break after trying to be social, but this woman had made him comfortable. He drank a soda while he waited for the food, swirled the ice cubes around in his glass, and thought.

Suddenly, he felt like someone had grabbed his stomach and twisted it in knots. Sam doubled over in his chair and coughed up soda. "Ah! What?"

The waitress had walked over with a box. "Are you all right, miss?"

Sam said, "I think so," but then he wasn't. It happened again, painful for a moment, but then the pain faded out and he had only the sense of someone pouring a glass of warm water into him. And another, and another...

"Ma'am, what's going on? Can you breathe?"

Sam gasped and nodded. He wasn't choking, but he suddenly had some idea of what was happening instead. He sat with his shapely legs a little farther apart. There was a weight startling to settle in his stomach... no, lower than that. The pouring feeling went on and on in waves, pressing against his navel from inside. By this point the waitress gaped. Sam said, "Magic accident!" and stumbled off of his stool.

He hurried down the hall toward the elevator. This couldn't be happening. Every few seconds there was a tiny surge inside him. He jabbed the elevator button and rocked side to side on his widening hips. His tail lashed the air and he found himself leaning backward to keep his balance. "How?" he said. He was trying to think of all the possible magic mistakes they could have made. Sam wobbled into the elevator and willed it to hurry up to his room, to Rena. Another surge, and he whimpered. His belly had curved out and steadied, except that now he could feel something moving in there. Sam was staring down at his transformed body with a shocked look on his muzzle when the elevator door opened.

A raccoon man towered over Sam from the doorway, looking as terrified as Sam felt. His face's fur was matted with tears and he said, "Sam? Is that you?" His hand flew to his muzzle as though he was startled by the deep voice.

Sam stared at him. Flat chest, a head taller than him, clothes stretched tight. "Rena?" He waddled out of the elevator and the man hugged him.

The man sounded hysterical. "My baby! Is that... did you...?"

Sam blushed and reached down to put his hands on his own belly. The feeling was disturbingly familiar. Instead of the firm, warm weight he'd felt from Rena, that he'd admired from outside, the faintly squirming pregnancy was right there beneath his own skin. He shuddered, hardly able to breathe.

Rena's ears flicked back and forth and his hands lurched forward to press against Sam. "Oh god. That's my kid in there! I thought I'd lost it! How did this happen?"

Sam couldn't quit staring at himself. "I... I need to sit down."

5.

They were in Sam's room, with Sam sitting on the bed and hands on his belly. Rena paced. Sam murmured, "You got ''me'' pregnant?"

Rena wasn't in much better shape. "You took my baby."

"Took? I didn't ask for this!"

They yelled at each other for a minute. Sam knew it made no sense, in the back of his mind, but he was trying not to panic and someone was wriggling inside him. After a while he wiped away tears with one fuzzy hand and said, "Enough. Let's think about this. We got linked, somehow, between you working a spell on me, and me using my own magic on you. Two magic-users interacting that... intimately in one day might've messed things up."

Rena blushed. "Intimately. Yeah. And when it hit, you came running for me."

Sam looked down over his breasts at the bulge filling his lap. "I thought something might be happening to you, too. And once I realized I was probably getting a baby, and that it might be yours, I had to come find you." He looked up at the raccoon man. "And you'd come running to find me."

They looked into each other's eyes. Rena was taller than before, and looked terrible in his blouse and girlish pants. Still, this was the same woman who'd talked with him so cheerfully and made his vacation something special. He couldn't blame Rena when they'd both agreed to mess around with magic for entertainment.

"Um," said Rena. "I'm sorry that this happened to you."

Sam nodded. "Sorry. So, did you actually go male?" Rena's pained expression told Sam all he needed to know. Sam forced himself to smile. "I guess I'll get to coach you on that after all. Another day of us being all messed up, huh?"

Rena was quiet for a moment. "Sam, I don't think so. Do you actually know of any spells to transfer a pregnancy like this? Or any case of an accidental gender swap?"

"Between two people?" Sam searched his memory. "Never heard of either." The consequences were starting to sink in.

"Then I suspect this isn't going to just wear off in another day. And if it did, it'd be dangerous to have my baby go through it again. We shouldn't fool around with this."

Sam didn't want to risk hurting the kid, either, even though the thought that this baby was actually inside him, right now, made it tough to focus on the moral theory of it. "Then what do we do?" he said.

Rena shook his head, started to speak, stopped, and paced the room. When he came back, he slowly knelt beside the bed and took Sam's hand. "Will you marry me?"

"What!"

"Please, Sam! You're... you're currently the mother of my kit. I can't help that I'm a guy right now, and you... Why are we pretending? You're a woman now, a lovely coongirl that I've managed to get knocked up by being ridiculous. If I walked away from you now I'd be just as bad as the guy who did that to me. It's ''our'' baby now."

Sam breathed faster. He took stock of his changed body, of the soft fur around his breasts and of the womb that was suddenly full. It was his responsibility now. ''Her'' responsibility. It was hard to argue with herself that she was still male when she could feel her baby starting to churn. When the thought of that caught her attention and made her rub fingers along her belly, spellbound, murmuring, "Our kit..."

"Stay with me. At least until the little guy's born. Five months... ten, I guess. After that we could try to undo this safely, and I can be your wife."

Sam looked back up at him, and laughed. "I came to Vegas looking for some gambling and relaxation, and I'm going to end up with a husband?"

Rena's hands squeezed hers. "A devoted one. We'll get through this together."

The plane ticket was lying on the table. Sam could fly home tomorrow and file a very unexpected plea for maternity leave, but there would be no escaping from what fate had in store for her. Much better to have the father here with her. Sam leaned back, closed her eyes, and said, "Yes."

6.

They went to one of the chapels north of the Strip, where the priest dressed like Elvis and asked no hard questions. Just asked if Sam would promise to love Rena tender, and not to step on his blue suede shoes. Sam said yes even though she wasn't sure. Was this love? Maybe it would be, in time.

Rena wore a rented tuxedo that made him look almost confident in his new body. Bright, hard-working, responsible. He'd make a great father. Sam wore a dress for the first time in her life. And Sam was reaching behind her, raising her up in strong arms, carrying her back into her hotel room... and laying her down onto the bed. Sam blushed up at her new husband and helped him slip out of his tuxedo jacket. Neither of them had really talked about the honeymoon, but what better way was there to learn about their new bodies? Sam smiled nervously down at her and said, "Can I help you with that dress?"

She said, "Next time, you know, you're the mom."

"Are you sure? Not even a coin toss?"

Sam giggled, loving the way their voices sounded now. Here in the little room, everything seemed right with the world. "I don't know. Give me a reason to want to keep the breasts, and everything else."

He did.

[[Category:Story]] [[Category:Star Raccoon]] [[Category:Raccoon]] [[Category:Anthropomorphic]] [[Category:Transgender]]

What Happens In Vegas

2012-08-24T07:54:14Z

Devin: Categories

Talk:Art archives

2009-05-26T08:20:48Z

Devin: /* Foxx's site down */ new section

== They're Gone ==

TFCentral and Doc's Lab are dead. The transformation fanbase has taken a devastating blow.

== Foxx's site down ==

Foxx's site has been down a few weeks I believe. Thought it was just downtime but it doesnt seem so now, anyone know if its permanently down?

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 08:20, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

User talk:JonBuck/After Hours

2009-05-15T04:16:29Z

Devin: Created page with 'Looks like a good start to what should be a fun story. :) --~~~~'

Looks like a good start to what should be a fun story. :)

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 04:16, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

User talk:Ferryn

2009-04-27T03:26:50Z

Devin:

Welcome to Shifti! Always glad to see new contributors. This is a bit of a standard boilerplate introduction that will hopefully help get you started on some of the basics you might not have noticed. Firstly, there's a main index of help pages at [[Help:Contents]] - a link is provided in the default sidebar titled "Help." It's a good idea to browse through the table of contents there so you'll know what information is available should you need it.

If you're here to post stories, there's a guide specifically for the basics of that over at [[Help:Posting stories]]. General editing assistance is at [[Help:Editing]], and information about how to use talk pages (like this one) is at [[Help:Talk pages]]. If any of the formatting seems esoteric at first, don't worry - wikis are collaborative and other editors and administrators will come around to help tidy up anything that's left in a messy state, if you want. The more complex details can be learned later as you go.

You can set up a personal homepage for yourself at your root user page, which you can find by clicking on your user name at the top of the page. Use your user page however you see fit; most authors generally list their stories there, along with a bit of biographical information about themselves and perhaps some links to other websites. See [[Help:User pages]].

If you have any questions, you can either click the edit link for this page and write it here or you can follow the link in my signature to my own home page and leave it in the talk page over there. You can find a list of Shifti's administrators at [[Shifti:Administrators]]. Once you've got your bearings, feel free to delete this welcome message from your user talk page. [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 00:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
:And with the boilerplate handled - Welcome to Shifti. You'll get the 'author' flag when you upload your first story :) -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 00:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to shifti Ferryn!
--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 03:26, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Fish/Mad Hatters and Musical Chairs

2009-02-20T16:17:58Z

Devin: Angela -> Aurora

[[Category:Fish]][[Category:Story]][[Category:Transgender]]{{title|name=Mad Hatters and Musical Chairs|author=Fish|user=Fish}}{{fiction}}{{WIP}}{{DEFAULTSORT: Mad Hatters and Musical Chairs}}
=&spades; &clubs; &hearts; &diams;=
A mile away from the frenetic neon bustle of the Las Vegas Strip is a hotel of modest means and unimpressive décor. Unlike its competitors — Excalibur, Caesar's Palace, Luxor — it has no need for outré architecture or boastful larger-than-life themes of legend, wealth or immortality. No bold display advertises its slot machine percentages, no staged spectacle of dancing girls lures customers to its rooms. This demure hotel existed in the midst of Sin City, and despite skyrocketing property values it was never razed to make room for anything newer, grander, or more profitable. It simply continued.

Once it had served its function as a destination for newlyweds and honeymooners. The hotel had previously given visitors the impression of living inside a giant, gaudy, ten-story Valentine's Day card: pink and white and red, festooned with images of cherubim, ribbons, hearts, and lace. Of its two hundred guest rooms, sixty were honeymoon suites; of its twenty bungalows, one was fashioned into the shape of a chapel. Couples arrived in Las Vegas prepared to tie the knot and, by the grace of Clark County's expedited marriage license program, the couples could be wed with a minimum of paperwork and delay.

A profitable decade passed, then the profits peaked. Traffic fell for several consecutive years, possibly due to the ever-increasing gravitational power of the nearby Strip. It was widely thought that the Honeymoon Hotel could not survive much longer on its own, and its staff of over a hundred would be let go. Some of the staff suggested that the hotel had been doomed by its poor location. Others with more tenure hinted that there was a murdered bride and groom that haunted the halls. It may have been its own institutional inertia that hurt the hotel the most: ten-year-old décor positively antique by Las Vegas standards, tired theme, anemic gaming tables, uninspired advertising.

At last, the Honeymoon Hotel was sold to new business interests. After extensive consultation it became clear that its two artificial lakes and one indoor-outdoor swimming pool would be costly to remove. The landlord chose instead to remodel its outdated interior design with its eye-searing pinks and reds. He was from Montana, and he enjoyed his time in the warmth of Nevada, so he chose a tropical theme — pedestrian in many ways, but so was he: stolid, unimaginative, businesslike, keen on profit and efficiency, short on vision. The romantic wallpaper was painted over in more modern teal and sand and mango; hearts and ribbons and cherubim were removed and replaced with palm trees, seashells, and hula girls. The two artificial lakes, one on each side of the hotel, were lined with palm trees. By the indoor-outdoor pool a thatched-roof cabana bar was erected. The chapel, which commanded the best view of the larger of the two lakes, was converted to office space for the landlord. It was renamed The Lakes Hotel, and couples no longer flocked to its rooms to become united in happy matrimony.

Deep down below layers of teal and mango paint, behind a tropical facade, the hotel was never truly remodeled. The walls remembered the images of Cupid's arrows, the rooms remembered the long-ago echoes of the wicked laughter of newly minted brides. If hotels could speak, this one might suggest that it missed the old days.
=A&spades; J&diams;=
At ten minutes before six in the morning, Elliott Ketner woke to the insistent sound of knocking at his door. He stared for a moment at the glowing indigo digits of the clock-radio at his bedside without comprehending them, still thick-headed with sleep. Elliott had gone off-shift from the bar at three. Six o'clock was far too early to be awake.

It slowly registered that he had heard knocking. To the darkened, silent room he called out, “Yes?”

“Elliott, it's you,” said a voice he thought he recognized. “Thank God. You sleep hard, boy! Can I open up?”

Open up? Elliott couldn't remember at this hour who might sound so familiar and yet ask permission. “Yeah, sure,” he said, kicking away the blankets and pushing himself clumsily into an upright position. “Come on in.”

The door creaked open. Elliott looked stupidly at the feminine silhouette framed against the bright hall light, and recalled the sound of the voice. “Brett?” he asked, surprised, as he fumbled for the corner of a discarded blanket to cover his midsection. “Is that you?”

The woman in the doorway seemed to glance down at herself. “Yeah,” she drawled. “Last I looked.”

“What's up? Why so early?” Elliott wanted to know. “Something wrong.”

Her expression could not be read against the light, but she put a hand on her hip and threw a lilt of sarcasm into her tone. “No, nothing. You know Jeremy?”

“At the bar? Yeah.” Elliott rubbed his eyes. “He works afternoons.”

“Not any more,” Brett said. “It's all you now, boy.”

In the dark, Elliott smiled through a yawn. “Jeremy's gone? Good for him. He meet somebody?”

The shadow nodded.

“Cute?”

“I didn't see,” the shadow said. “But Ed tells me you're working his shifts, now. Set your alarm. You start at noon.”

“So why'd you wake me up at six?”

“I'm switching to the front desk,” Brett said. “Reception.”

“Congratulations.”

“And you're training me.”

“Oh.” There wasn't much to say to that. Turnover was both slow and sudden at The Lakes Hotel, and it meant every member of the staff had to be prepared to train the others at any time. “What time do you start?”

“As soon as you get dressed,” the shadow said shortly. “Come on, get showered. I don't want you to make me late.”
=A&hearts; 7&hearts; J&diams; A&spades; Q&clubs;=
Brett Noble was a tiny, slender Japanese woman of about thirty years of age: intelligent, quick-witted, and reserved, with a healthy interest in sex. Brett always ate properly, focusing on vegetables and low-fat, low-carb meals in the Lakes Restaurant. Elliott had seen her on many mornings swimming laps in the indoor-outdoor pool. For her first day at the reception desk, she wore a practical and stylish yellow pencil skirt and a silky floral blouse. She really was lovely, Elliott admitted. He had known her now for six months, and he was growing rather fond of her. It was such a shame that they were co-workers. A relationship would never work between them.

By nine in the morning, Brett was beginning to understand the responsibilities of her new position. She was an adept learner, and she had been at the Lakes Hotel for six months, so the duties weren't entirely unfamiliar. Elliott actually found himself admiring her as she stood behind the counter in the lobby, her lips pursed and her brow creased. She studied the weekend reservations with a charming expression of intense thought, tucking dark stray hairs behind one ear absently.

When the lesbian couple came into the lobby at quarter after nine, Elliott could see them checking her out. The two women gave him a single, dismissive look, then returned their attention to Brett, who gave them her best smile and greeted them with a cheery “Hi! Welcome to The Lakes Hotel. How can I help you?”

The older of the women, a tall mixed-race black woman with closely cropped hair, pulled a wallet out of her pocket on a long metal chain while her partner brought the baggage to the counter. She was probably forty, with an unattractive asymmetry of freckles, and wore no makeup. Elliott had little impression of the shape of her body, because she wore a burnt orange crew-neck shirt beneath a shapelessly severe sports jacket. She slipped out her identification. “I'm Maris Barnhardt,” she said, her voice a low velvet purr. “I have reservations here that were placed online through Peak Performance Technical. Here is the printout,” she added, producing a document from her inside pocket folded precisely into thirds.

“Thank you, Ms. Barnhardt,” Brett said, taking the document and examining the reservation computer. “I have your reservation here for Room 740, single occupancy. Will your friend be needing a second room?”

“No, we'll stay in the same room,” Maris responded with a touch of impatience. “She's my partner.”

Brett didn't bat an eyelash. “The single-occupancy rooms are somewhat small, Ms. Barnhardt,” she said delicately. “Would you like to upgrade your room to a double?”

The other woman at the counter bristled. “Are you suggesting I'm fat?” she demanded.

Elliott could see that the honest answer would not do: she was indeed overweight, a round-faced Chinese woman no more than thirty, with short, spiked hair and a collection of piercings. The tattoo of a fish swirling in a spiral could be seen on the bare skin of her meaty upper arm.

“No, ma'am,” Brett said, and she artfully lowered her voice. “Between you and me, those beds are really tiny. It's a single. You and she wouldn't be very comfortable in one of them together.”

The Chinese woman chewed on that response, looking over Brett with some distaste. Brett was the model of elegant Asian beauty, and this woman was everything Brett was not: pale, thick-bodied, dressed unflatteringly. Unable to find a way to object, the woman simply harumphed to her partner. “What do you think? Will the company spring for an upgrade?”

“Of course they will, Honor,” the black woman replied blandly. “I'll see that they do.”

“And if they don't?”

She turned to her partner. “Peak Performance won't be around much longer to complain about it, will they? I don't think the company is going to last the year. We're doing our own expense reports. Nobody is going to be paying attention to the cost of a hotel room. The only reason they're still sending me to this seminar is that they already paid the registration fees up front.” Maris smiled faintly. “And as long as they're paying, I'm going.”

“Might as well make the most of it,” Elliott said lightly, but the two women ignored him.

“I can upgrade you to a lakeside bungalow for another hundred and twenty dollars,” Brett announced, tapping at the computer, “Or I can also get you into a double-occupancy room for fifty.”

“No, you can't,” Maris said calmly.

“I'm sorry?” Brett asked.

“I'm quite sure I just heard you say there weren't any doubles,” the black woman said, unruffled. “A bungalow will just have to do, won't it, Honor?”

Her partner grinned a nicotine grin. “We'll just have to make do,” Honor said, and glanced at Brett. “Double bed?”

“King size,” Brett assured them, and handed across a digitally encoded credit-card key. “You're in B12. Go out the doors you came in, turn left and go around the building. When you cross the footbridge you'll be at B10, so just keep on going until you hit B12.”

“Or you might take a brochure,” Elliott added, offering one. “It's got a map, the history of the hotel, the restaurant hours, and the number for room service.”

Maris Barnhardt took the brochure from Elliott with a perfunctory thanks, and thanked Brett more effusively for her help.

“Well,” Elliott said after the two women had left with their luggage in tow. “They're going to be interesting. They hardly even knew I was here.”

“They must not like men very much,” Brett said smugly.

“Well,” Elliott said with a shrug, “I hope they're flexible on that.”

Business was slow for a Thursday. Brett listened carefully as Elliott explained everything that came to mind about working the reception counter. It had been months since he had worked at this position. In the intervening time, Elliott had been promoted into positions with more guest exposure, as the Hotel management called it. Brett had little trouble picking up on the basics, although at times she seemed pensive and distracted.

“Still taking it all in?” Elliott asked her gently at one point.

Brett blew out an impatient breath. “I had a date this afternoon. I had to cancel.”

“Cute?”

She sighed. “Yeah. I don't think it would've worked out, but...” Brett trailed off, lost in thought for a moment, then stabbed viciously at the registration computer. “Damn it, this just pisses me off, you know? One of these days I'm going to just quit. Just walk out of this job and never look back.”

“And leave all this behind?” Elliot said dryly.

Brett gave him a tired smile. “Yeah. There's nothing keeping me here. Six months, down the drain. You've been here a year? I don't know how you do it.”

Elliott put a hand on her arm, and found she was shaking silently. “One more weekend,” he suggested.

She looked at him, a question in her gaze. “Is that how you do it? One weekend at a time?”

“No,” Elliott said, and shrugged again. “To tell you the truth, I—”

The electronic bell rang as the front door opened. Elliott saw an frail old woman of at least seventy struggle to handle the door, a battered blue suitcase wheeling behind her, and a cane. She moved with the slow precision common to the elderly and the injured, as if one leg, or one hip, caused her difficulty. Her faded blue sun dress flapped around her scrawny legs in the Nevada wind.

“Let me help you,” Elliott offered immediately, stepping around the counter.

As he took both the door and suitcase in hand, the old woman offered him a brittle smile. “That's nice of you. What's your name? Are you the bellhop?”

“Actually, I'm the bartender, miss,” Elliott said, letting the pneumatic door close behind her. “My name is Elliott.”

“I'm Mrs. Abrams,” she said.

—and there was a distant little twinkle in her blue eyes, as if she were hoping that would be enough. As if she secretly wanted Elliott to fill in the missing information. He took in her face: lined, yes, but shaped well, and somehow familiar.

Then it dawned on him. “Abrams?” Elliott asked. “As in Ursula Abrams?”

The twinkle returned to her eye, and she smiled. “I'm surprised you recognized me, Elliott. And pleased.”

“Of course I recognized you,” he said, grinning broadly. “You're one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood history!”

“Not any more, dear,” Ursula sighed. “But thank you anyway.”

“Brett, do you know who this is?” Elliott asked the reception clerk excitedly. “This is Ursula Abrams. She was a huge Hollywood star during the 1950s. Remember the movie ''The Sultan's Favorite Wife''? This is that actress!”

“Really?” Brett asked with minimum polite interest.

“She was making movies about the same time as Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield,” Elliott went on, bringing the luggage to the counter. “She did this great movie with Tony Curtis, what was it? ''Get Along Joe''.”

“Jayne Mansfield,” Brett said, frowning. “Was she the one with the big—” She made two cupping gestures over her own chest. “Whatever happened to her?”

Ursula spoke up in a tremulous voice, emphasizing her recollection with a gnarled finger. “Automobile accident. She was killed. Nineteen sixty-seven. Two years before my accident. And five years after Marilyn.”

Elliott looked at the aging starlet in sudden realization. “Is that why you never made any movies after that?”

Her smile was melancholy. “I made movies after that, dear, but nobody saw them. I was too old, then. Nearly forty I was, when I could walk again.” She twisted her cane on the hotel's seashell carpet. “The world cared about dead Marilyn and dead Jayne more than old living Ursula with a broken leg and a funny walk. I still have the scars on my hip.” She sighed again. “And of course by then it was Raquel Welch. She was more your time,” she added to Elliott with a wink.

He smiled, and didn't mention that Raquel stopped being a sex symbol the year he had been born. What he said was, “She never had your screen presence.”

“Oh!” Ursula said, delighted, and brushed away his compliment. “I didn't do that much. I had a good run for my time.”

“What have you been working on lately?” Elliott asked, as Brett found Ursula's reservations in the computer.

“Just blowing around this town like an old ghost,” she said wryly. “That's what you get when you waste your youth on movies. You end up old like me, without any kids to spoil.”

Elliott nodded. “Well, come visit me in the bar in the afternoon and evening. We'll talk about movies, if you like.”

Ursula took his wrist in her hand warmly. “I would like that.”

The two hotel employees watched as Ursula Abrams left the lobby in the company of one of the new bellhops, Kelly or Kenny or whatever his name was.

“Well, Brett,” Elliott said expansively, “it's time I got ready for work. Good luck here. I think you've got the hang of it.”

Brett shrewdly watched her friend's gaze return back to the hallway, where Kenny or Kelly was leading their new guest to her room. She nodded in that direction. “Think it's her?”

Elliott shrugged. “You never know in this place.”

=A&spades; 4&diams; 2&spades; 6&diams;=
The indoor bar at the Lakes Hotel was named, somewhat unimaginatively, the Sand Bar. It followed the same tropical theme that the new owner — the staff considered him the new owner although he had already been here seven years — had dictated. The walls were painted in vivid sea-green and coral, festooned with marine life both sculpted and painted. Two life-size brass mermaids flanked the entrance. A second bar had been added in the cabana outdoors to service the guests at poolside, but the owner, having exhausted his creativity, neglected to name it.

Elliott had worked the bar for a few months now, having recently received his bar tending license. It was an excellent place to meet people, to see whether they were enjoying themselves, and to find out which rooms the cute ones were staying in.

On a Thursday afternoon, the bar was empty. Only the most die-hard of regulars were here. The blue LEDs on the jukebox flickered unseen as it played Alannah Myles quietly to itself.

One of his regulars brushed aside the beaded curtain in the doorway and entered the bar. He was an older black gentlemen named Hyatt, and he walked with a certain arthritic stiffness, tapping his fingers against his thigh to music in his head.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Hyatt,” Elliott called to him. “What can I get for you this afternoon?”

“You got anything sour?” Hyatt asked, slipping onto a barstool. “I got the taste for something lemony.”

“Gin and tonic?”

Hyatt made a face, rubbing the white stubbles on his chin. “No, I reckon I had one too many o' them in my life. B'sides, gin and tonic always makes me lose bad at the craps table.”

“Vodka Collins?”

He shook his head. “Don't much care for vodka. Maybe something with lime, that'd be good.”

“Lime, and sour,” Elliott mused.

“Something different,” Hyatt said. “I gotta do somethin' to change my luck.”

“How about a Chocolate Soldier?”

Hyatt chuckled. “Sounds like me. Chocolate Soldier. What's in it?”

“How's gin, vermouth, and lime juice strike you?”

Hyatt tapped the counter with one decisive finger. “That's the stuff right there. Shoot me one of those.”

Elliott proceeded to mix the drink into a shaker, juicing half a lime industriously. Hyatt jostled his arm.

“You didn't ask for my ID,” he said, grinning. “You breakin' the law.”

“You're a regular, Mr. Hyatt,” Elliott said mildly. “We all know you.”

“If I was still on the force I'd be bringing your ass in,” Hyatt said, amused. He waved a hand magnanimously. “I won't bust you this time. But I figured you'd wanna see.”

“See what?”

Hyatt slapped something flat down upon the bar with a triumphant smack, and gave Elliott an impish smile. “You don't wanna see my room number?”

“Your room number?” Elliott said, and beamed. “You're staying here?”

“Just this weekend,” Hyatt said. “I won't be staying here regular. I been living with my daughter and her husband just down the way. Usually I just stop here for a drink on my way down to the casino.”

And to see if our games are any luckier than the ones at the Excalibur, Elliott thought. But handed Hyatt his drink and didn't say it.

“Well, my daughter got a big ol' baby shower this weekend, so she kick the old man out,” Hyatt said, taking his highball glass and swirling the drink. “Gettin' to be where it looks like I'm in the way. She says no, but I can tell. They're kids, they gotta have some time to their self.”

“So why don't I put this on your room tab, Mr. Hyatt?” Elliott said with a smile.

“You call me Russell,” Hyatt said, offering his hand.

Elliott gave his hand a brisk, professional shake. Russell Hyatt had big hands, strong and calloused, evidently from a life of hard work.

“So you're an ex-cop?” Elliott asked, leaning against the bar. There were no other patrons, and drink service to the casino was fairly light. All the prep had been done for the evening, and there was nothing left to do.

“Twenty years,” Hyatt nodded. “Six in Chicago, ten in N'Orleans, and four here in Vegas. That's how I ended up with this stiff neck,” he added, taking a swig of his drink.

Thinking of Ursula Abrams, Elliott said, “Did you have an accident in your patrol car?”

“Huh-uh,” Hyatt said. “Drivin' along, I kept seeing damn fine women on every corner. Bad enough in N'Orleans during Mardi Gras they got them girls who don't wear nothing but beads, but here there's enough pretty women to give a man whiplash.” He chuckled to himself.

“What kind of work did you do for the force?”

“Mostly vice,” Hyatt said with a toothy grin. “And mostly vice on my time off, too. A man's gotta have a little relaxation time, you know what?”

“I do know,” Elliott said with a faint smile.

A cocktail waitress swept up to the bar wearing an extremely full bikini top and a floral wrap slung around her hips. She had dusky Polynesian skin, shoulder-length black hair with a hibiscus in it, and not an ounce of fat anywhere except the two obvious locations up front. “Hey, El,” she said, laying aside her tray and propping her elbows on the bar. “Can you make a Sex on the Beach with pineapple for me?”

“That's a great opening line, Dee Dee,” Elliott said dryly.

She smacked the bar with one tiny palm, causing some delightful jiggles, and gave an exasperated laugh. “Come on, I'm serious. Special order.”

Elliott reached for the peach schnapps, noting the way Hyatt's eyes gravitated to the way she bounced in her top when she had hit the bar. His neck didn't seem to hurt him all that much, did it? Elliott mixed the drink in a shaker and poured it into a highball glass. “There you go, Dee Dee.”

She laughed again, rolling her eyes. “I told you not to call me that,” she called over her shoulder as she left the bar, the drink perched on her tray. Hyatt watched her go, his lips pursed in a soundless whistle.

“Whiplash?” Elliott asked with a smirk.

“Yeah, I'm telling you,” Hyatt said. “Whoooee. Damn. Is she new?”

“She's been here a while. She just started working this shift,” Elliott said blandly, rinsing out his shaker. The jukebox switched over from Alannah Myles to Everclear.

“Why d'you call her Dee Dee?”

“Isn't it obvious?” Elliott said, amused. “Double Dee. Her name is really Deanne,” he added.

“See, that's how come I had to quit,” Hyatt said, tossing a thumb over his shoulder toward the door. “All them girls out on the street. Kinda hard to watch the road.”

“Yes, it can be distracting,” Elliott asked in a careful tone. “I hope nothing happened.”

Hyatt took quite some time assembling an answer for that, but before he had a chance to speak they were interrupted again. A new patron had entered the Sand Bar, one unfamiliar to Elliott: white male, medium height, clean-shaven. Dark hair was slicked back from his forehead with some kind of styling gel. The newcomer wore a neutral gray jacket over a white tee, khaki Dockers, and brown work boots, and he appeared to be scanning the bar as if looking for something.

“Can I help you, sir?” Elliott called.

The newcomer approached the bar and pulled out his wallet without being asked. He flipped it open to show his license, which contained a poor but passable picture. Elliott had time to glimpse the birthdate and name — Garvin Danbury — before he flipped it closed again and returned it to his pocket. “Martini on the rocks,” Dabney said. “No gin.”

“On the rocks?” Hyatt asked. “That ain't no way to drink a martini.”

“My mama didn't raise me right,” Danbury said, and flashed a charismatic smile. The smile stayed for a moment, touching every part of his face except the eyes, and then flickered off again, as if a circuit had been cut.

“Vermouth, on the rocks,” Elliott said, pushing a cocktail napkin across the bar and pulling out a chilled martini glass from the mini fridge.

“You in town for the weekend?” Hyatt asked, looking the man over.

Danbury seemed to consider the question. “Yes,” he replied after a pause. “I'm here for a business conference. I fly out Sunday night.”

“Which conference?” Elliott asked, more to make conversation than from curiosity. “Management concepts seminar?”

Again, the pause; again, the charismatic smile flickered on. “Vacuum cleaners,” Danbury said. He scooped up the cocktail napkin before Elliott could deposit the glass there, and took the glass in his napkined hand. The smile flickered off again. “That's what I do. I sell vacuum cleaners.”

“It must be interesting,” Elliott offered.

Danbury didn't answer. He hoisted the martini. “I'll be back,” he said. “I fly out Sunday.”

“Have fun at your conference,” Elliott called to him as he left.

Hyatt also watched him go, then turned back to the bartender with a grunt.

Elliott wiped down the bar. Danbury's chilled glass had left a moisture ring. “Something bothering you?”

“Old habits die hard,” Hyatt said, lost in thought. “Something wrong with that guy.”

“People do drink vermouth plain,” Elliott countered. “Not very often, I admit.”

Hyatt shook his head and took a drink. “Mmm, no, not that. You see them boots he had on? Hiking boots. Those weren't salesman shoes.”

“He can wear any kind of shoes he wants on his own time.”

“Maybe. And he didn't offer a card. Never met a salesman yet who wasn't trying to get me to take one of his cards. Vacuum cleaners, my ass.” Hyatt drummed his glass with his fingers. “And the way he had the glass in his hand. With a napkin. Like he didn't want fingerprints on it.”

Elliott shrugged. “What difference does that make? He showed me ID. We know who he is. He had to leave a credit card number in order to get a room.”

“Didn't show it for very long,” Hyatt objected. “And he didn't wait for you to ask. Huh.”

“I wouldn't worry about it, Mr. Hyatt,” Elliott assured him. “Maybe he's hiding something, and maybe he isn't. I'm sure the Hotel is very safe.”

Hyatt took another pull at his cocktail, and then grinned ruefully. “Hell, you're probably right. Old habits die hard.”

By seven o'clock, Hyatt had moved on — to the craps table, then to video blackjack, then to the nickel slots, if Elliott was any judge of the man's history. Russell Hyatt liked to claim that he only stopped by the Lakes Hotel on his way to somewhere else, but ultimately spent more time here than he would probably care to admit. Not that the machines at the Lakes Hotel offered any better payout than the casinos down the street, but the girls here were certainly prettier. Much prettier, Elliott mused, thinking of Dee Dee.

Occasionally Dee Dee, or one of the other cocktail waitresses on shift, would return and ask for a drink on Hyatt's behalf: something unusual, something salty — something to change Hyatt's luck, not that any drink ever would. Elliott kept a careful mental list of the drinks he had prepared for him, and hoped that this weekend, Hyatt's luck would turn.

The evening was busier than the afternoon. Gambling was a twenty-four-hour pastime for many, but only the most dedicated drinkers started before the five o'clock work whistle. Ursula Abrams never materialized, but soon Elliott was too caught up in his bartending to spare much thought for her.

At about eight, a woman slipped into the Sand Bar and headed straight for a bar stool, positioning her room key-card protectively in front of her. She was about forty, and blonde, but her face was unmade and prematurely lined, her expression hollow and haunted. There was a lingering trace of a bruise around her left eye.

Elliott bustled his way over to where she sat. “Room 316,” he noted, looking at her key-card. “What can I get for you, miss?”

She smiled wistfully at the word. “I haven't been called ''miss'' for a long time.”

“Then it's time someone did,” Elliott quipped. “What can I get for you, miss?”

The woman stared at the racks of bottles behind the bar, casting her eye over the bewildering variety. “I don't know,” she said. “What are people drinking these days?”

“The martini has come back into style,” he suggested.

“Has it? That's nice.” She bit her lip. “My husband doesn't like me to drink.”

Elliott again noted the bruise near her left eye, and decided he'd mention it. “I can see that,” he said. “But there's nothing wrong with a drink now and then, in moderation.”

She laughed bitterly, and touched the spot. “Moderation is not a word my husband is familiar with. He would be absolutely ''horrified'' to find I was here in a bar with drinking and gambling.”

“I won't tell, I promise,” Elliott said. “What would you like?”

“I'll have a martini,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly. “Do they still come with olives?”

“If you like.”

“I don't like,” she countered, with a shy grin. “I can't stand olives. But I'm going to have one anyway.”

“Good girl, that'll show him,” Elliott said, returning the smile.

“And nobody's called me girl in a long time, either,” she added, watching Elliott pour gin and vermouth into the glass.

“I can't just call you Room 316,” he said as he stirred.

“Then call me Nadine. Nadine Oba.”

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, and introduced himself. “Are you staying for the weekend, Nadine Oba?”

“As long as it takes,” she said, and sighed. “I'll probably go back Sunday. I just need to get away from him for a while. He'll worry if he sees I'm not there.”

The lesbian couple from earlier in the morning came into the bar, and seated themselves in a booth far from the door, eyeing the scantily-clad cocktail waitress. After serving them, and several more customers, Elliott made his way back over to the bar to check up on Nadine. She was biting into the gin-soaked olive and making a face.

“How was your martini, Nadine Oba?” he asked her with a smile.

“Perfect,” she said, pushing the empty glass back toward him. “Even the olive.”

“Another?”

“Please.”

She watched as he mixed a second martini for her. “Oba,” Elliott mused aloud. “Japanese name?”

Nadine nodded, brushing hair from her face. “He's very traditional. Hard-working.”

“And he doesn't want you to drink. Here you are, one martini.”

“Thank you. He hates the very thought,” Nadine said, dipping a finger into the gin and tasting it. “Can you imagine that? It doesn't stop ''him'' from drinking, of course, oh no.” Once more the bitter laugh surfaced, possibly emboldened by alcohol. “He drinks like a sailor. Is that the right word? What is it that people drink like?”

“Most people say ''curses like a sailor'',” Elliott said, “and ''drinks like a fish''.”

“Well, he does both,” Nadine said airily, and took a ladylike sip. “So I'll say he drinks like a sailor.”

“If you say so,” Elliott grinned.

“I do say. He's not here.” She took another finger-taste of her martini as the thought settled in. “He's not here. What do I care what he thinks?”

Dee Dee came up alongside her and leaned over the bar on her elbows again, nearly spilling out of her bikini top. “Mr. Hyatt wants a Coke,” she announced. “I think he's about done for the night.”

“Good call,” Elliott said, and pulled the Coca-Cola nozzle out on its flexible tube and filled a drink. “Coke is usually his last drink of the day.”

Nadine's sidelong look of mild, jealous disapproval at Dee Dee's cleavage waterfall dissipated when she saw Elliott fill the glass with cola. “That's clever! What's that?”

“It's a bar gun,” he said, showing it to her. “They're very handy. There's Coke, soda water, and plain water, on these buttons here.”

“Aren't they cool?” Dee Dee asked, beaming. “I totally want one.”

Nadine's reservation seemed to melt. She didn't appear to want to like Dee Dee — or perhaps her husband didn't approve of her having friends. But Nadine offered her up a tentative smile nevertheless. “I don't think Yasuo would let me.”

“If he's the one who let you have that bruise,” Dee Dee said, not unsympathetically, “then maybe you ought to think about leaving him behind.”

“I could never do that,” the woman mumbled. “He needs me.”

Dee Dee rolled her eyes at Elliott and left the Sand Bar, cola in hand. Nadine turned to Elliott, almost worried. “That's right, isn't it? He does need me.”

“Perhaps,” Elliott said slowly, picking his words, “perhaps he needs you a lot more than you need him.”

“I just don't know,” Nadine fretted. She picked up her second martini and took her first drink from it. “I don't know if I can leave him.”

Elliott smiled at her. “Miss, I hope you get the chance to find out.”

=9&hearts; J&diams; J&spades; 7&diams; 10&spades;=
At six o'clock on Friday morning, Brett was in the tiled guest shower by the indoor-outdoor pool. This was not her usual time to swim, but since having switched to the eight-to-four shift, it was the best time of day for it. None of the hotel guests would be using the pool at this hour. While the pool was heated, the air was still chilly. Exercise would make it seem warmer.

Her morning laps in the pool represented a contract she had made with herself: exercise and stay fit, keep her body trim, come what may. Working at the hotel had her up and down at all hours, covering for other employees: one day serving food as a waitress, the next day helping to re-paint a hallway. The hotel's maxim was constant change, and Brett's routine in the midst of chaos comforted her.

She swam several times across the outdoor half of the pool and back, watching and listening as the hotel staff in the cabana bar prepared for the day: slicing lemon and lime garnishes, stocking the shelves behind the bar, throwing out empties. Her long hair trailed behind in her wake.

''It's going to take forever to dry'', she thought idly. ''Tomorrow I'd better get up earlier.''

Brett climbed out of the pool and wrapped one of the old-style hotel towels around her body. She was tiny and the towel huge; it completely covered her yellow one-piece swimsuit from shoulder to thigh. Through vacant hallways, she padded back to her room in yellow flip-flop sandals.

With the hair dryer stretched to the furthest extent of the cord, Brett stood at her closet, head tilted to one side to let her hair hang in the warm air of the dryer. She wore the bored and befuddled look of someone who had absolutely no idea what to wear.

Eventually she chose a hip-hugging miniskirt in a floral-pattern orange, and a plain while silk blouse. She fished around in the closet until she came up with matching orange flats. For several long minutes she stared at her face in the mirror, trying to decide whether it was worth the time to wear makeup. In the end she sighed and did the minimum she felt she needed: foundation, eyeliner, blush, lipstick. She pinned back her still-damp tresses with a butterfly clip and studied the result.

Brett sighed again, and looked sadly at her own reflection. “What did I do wrong?”

Business at the hotel's front desk that morning was brisk, much busier than yesterday. Of course, it was a Friday; people were taking an extra day off to make it a long weekend, and they were checking in early.

''One weekend at a time'', Brett reminded herself several times that morning.

A tall man in his late forties, with steel-gray hair and a silk suit to match, checked into the hotel about eleven o'clock. He looked rumpled and red-eyed, and was sweating slightly from the midmorning heat. “I have a reservation,” he announced, setting down his cases. “It might be under Peak Performance Technical, or under the name Byerly.”

Brett accessed the reservation in the computer. “First name?”

“Schuyler. Or maybe Sky. I don't know, my secretary made the reservation.”

“Did you have a printed confirmation?”

He hesitated. “No. She gave me one, but I don't know where it is. Am I in trouble?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe,” Brett said. She was not in the mood to flirt today, certainly not with him. “Here you are. Schuyler Byerly, room 611. That's on the company card?”

He nodded.

Brett coded a new key-card for him, sweeping it through the magnetic read-writer until the computer gave the all clear. “All right, sir, here is your card. That gives you access to the pool and the weight room, and it can be used in the restaurant and the bar to charge your meals directly to your room.”

He shook his head. “The company doesn't pay the bar tab. That isn't on the per diem.”

“If you want, sir, I can disable that here in the computer.”

“Please do,” he said. “I leave myself entirely in your hands.”

Brett smiled. It had been an odd thing for him to say. She went on with her routine: “And you may also have a brochure about the Hotel.”

“Very good,” he said absently, and tucked the card into his shirt pocket. A rack of pamphlets and half-sheet ads caught his eye, and he wandered over to browse through them. “Over here. May I?”

Brett tried not to sigh, as she stood with the correct brochure in her hand. The businessman looked over the racks of pamphlets, advertisements, offers, coupons, and other assorted glossy color promotions. Lake Tahoe, Death Valley, Lake Mead, Mount Charleston, Spring Valley State Park Take a day trip to the Valley of Fire. Visit scenic Red Rock Canyon. And there were other, less savory advertisements. The man was pulling one out.

“Pahrump,” Schuyler said. “That's a strange name for a town. Why would anybody want to go there?”

“It has its attractions,” she admitted, grudgingly.

“Oh, really? Such as?”

''That look of innocent curiosity has to be fake'', Brett decided. Aloud she said, “Prostitution isn't legal in Las Vegas, Mr. Byerly — not anywhere in Clark County. Most people take a short trip into Nye County. Into Pahrump.”

“Really?” he said, sounding impressed.

''Definitely faked'', she thought cynically.

“Well, maybe I'll just take this one instead,” Schuyler said, selecting another brochure. “I don't think the company would pay for me to visit a brothel!” He laughed, and it was all Brett could do not to wince. The man was no actor. And he didn't put the brochure for Pahrump back into the rack.

He made a show of gathering up his suitcases. “Room 611,” he reminded himself. “Which way are the elevators?”

“To your left,” Brett said. “Have a pleasant stay.”

The remainder of the day passed in a dreary, foot-aching blur. A slow but steady stream of guests checked into the Lakes Hotel. Several conferences and seminars and tradeshows were being held that weekend. A number of casinos advertised low-airfare specials for Friday-morning flights. There was also at least one family reunion, according to a black man who checked in with two less-black teenagers who must have been his son and daughter and also with a young white teenager — what kind of family reunion ''that'' would be, Brett didn't want to speculate. Perhaps the white kid was the daughter's boyfriend.

How much more of this could Brett take? Tomorrow would be the same: travelers, irritated by their long flights or long drives, would stand at the counter making demands. Most of the men would look at her as if she were a side of meat, trying to peer through her silk blouse to see if she was wearing a bra. Most of the women looked as if they were grading her choice of clothing. A handful of the guests, male and female, looked in trepidation at her Japanese features, and appeared pleasantly stunned that she spoke comprehensible and unaccented English.

Perhaps, she thought, it was time to leave the Hotel. She had been here six months now, six months without a sign of reprieve.

But near the end of her shift, three guests arrived that put all of that out of her mind: three women she had known from a past life, from before the Hotel.

“Brett! My God, it's you!”

That was Tara Addison, coming into the lobby at fifteen minutes of four: thirty, tending toward plump, dark-haired and blue-eyed, her enthusiastic charisma tinged with every new bride's fear that she wouldn't fit into the dress. Tara wore large, dark sunglasses and a coy sun hat, and a flowing pink dress. She dropped her suitcases and crossed the carpet in a rush to exchange embraces with Brett over the counter.

“Tara!” Brett smiled. “Sister, you made my day. What are you doing here?”

“We're staying the weekend!” she said brightly. “We've come to visit you.”

“Yes,” Brett said, “but why ''here''? You know what happened last time!”

“Exactly!” Tara said. “I talked it over with the girls — you know, all of us who were bridesmaids at Cody's wedding? And we decided that we absolutely had to stay here for one weekend right before my wedding.” She waved vaguely toward the door. “The other girls are fighting over who gets to pay the airport shuttle.”

“But—” Brett didn't quite know what to say. “I didn't see your names in the reservation computer.”

Tara ducked her head sheepishly, and gave an anything-but-shy grin. “We cheated. I had us all use different names. I went by my middle name, and my mom's maiden name. Joy Benson.”

“Look at you, being all secret agent,” Brett said, and looked Tara over. “What's the dark glasses and the hat for? And pink. You ''hate'' pink.”

“I know, it makes my face look red,” Tara replied happily. “Did you recognize me?”

Brett shook her head. “Only by your voice.”

“Good,” the bride-to-be said. “I hope Xavier doesn't recognize me, either.”

“Xavier?” Brett asked blankly. “Why, is he coming here tonight too?”

“Shhh!” Tara said, and giggled. “It's his bachelor party tonight.”

“And they're having it here?” Brett asked, shocked. “Tara—”

Tara waved away Brett's objections airily. “It'll work out, Brett. We wanted them to have it here. In fact, we specifically prohibited Frank from staying here.”

Brett nodded. Frank was Xavier's best man, and the most reliable of all the groomsmen: when you told him he couldn't do something, you knew for certain he would move heaven and earth to defy you. “It sounds like Frank.”

“Cody and Denise are deliriously happy,” Tara said, changing the subject. “Denise is already pregnant.”

“That must come as a surprise to her,” Brett said nastily.

“Don't laugh,” Tara said. “It might have been you!”

“I know it,” Brett sighed. “And to think I was one day away from marrying her myself.”

Tara's expression turned sober. “It wouldn't have worked. You and Cody would never have made it. A lot of us knew you just weren't right for each other.”

“Apparently not,” Brett said. “Why didn't you say anything?”

“What was there to say?” Tara asked simply. “You can't talk someone out of being in love.”

Brett turned her attention to the computer, stung. “Fine, Tara. Go ahead and give me the speech again about how it's all for the best. It's still hard to not feel betrayed. I came here for the wedding rehearsal expecting to get married to Cody, and what happens? This damned Hotel decides that Cody would be happier getting married to my ''best man''.”

“Denise isn't a best man any more,” Tara said quietly. “She's a pretty good woman, though. And she and Cody are happy.”

“Does Cody make a better man than I did?” Brett asked, a bitter edge to her voice.

Tara shrugged. “They're happy. What else can you want for them?”

Brett looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “Nothing, I guess. I do want them to be happy. I just don't understand why it had to come at my expense.”

“Your expense?” Tara asked, amazed. “Brett, I'm ''jealous''.”

“Jealous?” Brett laughed bitterly. “Jealous of me? Tara, I got transformed into a woman, I'm stuck here working at this hotel. My whole life got wiped out and rewritten.”

“Yes, jealous,” Tara said, raising her voice. “Brett, it may take a little bit of time, but the Hotel is going to set you up with your perfect match. The best possible relationship that it can, ever. Something that lasts. Do you know how ''hard'' it is for the rest of us, trying to find someone we can be happy with for a little while? Trying to find somebody you can love and trust? This is going to be my third marriage already,” Tara went on. “My ''third''. That means I screwed up twice. You, you'll get the perfect man just by ''being'' here.”

“Or woman.”

“Right. Or woman. I don't know how the Hotel can do it — change people — frankly, I don't care,” Tara said. “But it ''knows''. It knows if relationships are right.”

Light dawned, and Brett began to smile. “Ah, so ''that's'' why you're here incognito. You managed to get your fiancé checked into the hotel for his bachelor party, and you're secretly going to check into a room yourself. If this is the relationship that's meant to be...”

“Then I'll know,” Tara finished uneasily. “And if it's not, I'll know that too.”

“Big risk.”

Tara smiled. “Maybe. What's the worst that can happen?”

The door dinged again, and two other women entered the lobby. One of them Brett recognized: Carmen Griffith, a raven-haired Latina her own age whose once-lush beauty had been depleted by years of tanning beds and marital stress. Her brow was beginning to show an unhappy crease, and her mouth now seemed to be turned permanently down. Carmen had on a simple black tank top and jeans and had not, Brett observed, bothered with makeup. In her hand was a cardboard cup of coffee with the Hard Rock Café logo on the side.

“We went back to the place across the street to see if that cute guy still worked there,” Carmen explained, showing her cup. “But he wasn't in.”

Beside her was another woman in a flowing scarlet dress, suitcase in hand, who was staring at Brett with a mixture of suspicion and awe. She was tall and lean, with skin the color of coffee and cream: Polynesian, perhaps, with some East Asian mixed in. “Is this Brett?” she asked, looking right at her.

“Oh. Yes,” Tara said, remembering her manners. “Brett, this is Isadora Holakoui. She's a friend of Denise. You may recognize her; she was at the wedding.”

“I didn't go,” Brett said shortly.

“Well, she would have been in the wedding photographs.”

Brett sighed. “I didn't look at them. How could I? That was my fiancée getting married to my best man.”

“You mean it's true?” Isadora asked eagerly. “I didn't believe it when they told me. You really used to be a man?”

“Yes,” Brett said, and nodded. It felt like it had been a thousand years ago.

“And Cody used to be a ''woman''?” she asked with something like wicked glee. “Oh my God, I can totally see him as a woman. You were going to get married?” She put a hand to her mouth, as if silencing herself, and her large brown eyes were suddenly apologetic. “I'm sorry, Brett, I didn't mean to dance on your grave or anything. I just can't ''believe'' this! What's it like getting turned into a woman?”

“It felt like,” Brett said slowly, choosing her words carefully, “like being disarmed.”

Isadora's eyes twinkled with evil delight. “And you've been a girl ever since? Since the wedding?”

“Off and on,” Brett admitted. “Depends on where I'm working in the Hotel. I've been male for short periods. Then someone on the staff leaves, and I move up to a new position. Sometimes that means I change bodies.”

“So that explains it,” Carmen said, tapping her lips thoughtfully. “I thought I remembered that you got turned into a blond girl. I definitely remember blond. Now you're Asian or something. How can you stand working here, changing all the time?”

Brett spread her small hands in frustration. “What choice have I got? If I leave now, if I walk away from this job, I'll stay like this. If I want to be a man again, I've got to put in my time here and hope somebody comes along for me.”

“Comes along?” Isadora asked blankly. “Oh! Your match. You think some perfect guy is going to come walking in that door for you?” That made her grin impishly again. “You ever slept with a guy, Brett?”

“Dora!” Carmen protested. Brett could feel herself blushing.

“Fine, then,” Isadora said. “Ever sleep with a girl, then? I mean like this. Come on,” she said defensively, seeing the shocked reactions of her friends. “Girls can be a lot of fun. I just wouldn't want to ''date'' one. You ''know'' girls are all psycho.”

That made Brett laugh weakly. “Whose side are you on?”

“My own, I guess,” Isadora grinned.

“Hey, Brett?” Tara asked. “What time do you get off shift? Maybe we should have a few drinks and get caught up.”

“Clubbing? No way,” Carmen said, holding up her hands. “This girl's married.”

“But Car, Frank's an ''ass'',” Tara said.

“I take my vow seriously,” Carmen said darkly, “even if Frank doesn't.”

“I'm off right now, actually,” Brett said, checking the time. “Eight to four. Nathan should be here any minute to take over.”

“We can't go clubbing,” Isadora said. “The guys will be out tonight hitting all the bars. We might run into them.”

“Are you sure they're not here already?” Carmen asked.

Tara shook her head. “I didn't see Xavier's Honda. Or your car either, Carmen. What does Luis drive?”

“A maroon Acura,” Carmen said immediately.

“Maybe they took Frank's car.”

Carmen scowled. “Frank would never volunteer to be the designated driver.”

“I'll check to see if they're here,” Brett suggested, moving toward the registration computer. She tapped a few keys and scanned the guest list. “No, I don't see they've checked in. According to the computer they're due in after nine o'clock.”

“So,” Tara said, as decisive as any bride-to-be, “we have until nine o'clock — make it eight, to be safe. We get back by then, we hide my car down the block somewhere, and we stay inside the rest of the night. And then...” She trailed off with a wistful sigh. “And then we see what the Hotel has to say.”

=3&diams; 8&spades; 7&hearts; A&hearts; 8&hearts; K&clubs; Q&clubs; 7&diams;=

Friday evening was one of the busiest shifts of the week on the casino floor, and Dee Dee didn't have any time to catch her breath. Her duties as a hostess weren't demanding, but they were never-ending. In a way, she thought of herself as a gardener, traveling around the floor to see that all the plants were well watered. The gamblers, for their part, stayed rooted by their machines, feeding coins into slots and into video poker, or sat at their card tables in the Pit. Occasionally they would bestir themselves and move to another machine, another table, another game. Whether based on their meticulous notes, or their imagined instinct for probability, the gamblers decided that their luck had run out here, or that it would be better elsewhere: craps, roulette, keno, slots. It was like Brownian motion, she thought to herself: predictably random swirling of individual particles.

Dee Dee hadn't always been a cocktail waitress. She hadn't always been beautiful. At an early age she realized that her reflection in the mirror would never get any thinner, never match the rail-thin models in Cosmopolitan, and she despaired of ever finding a man she would be happy with, still later despaired of finding a man at all. People told her she had a great personality, and a beautiful face, and a sharp mind, none of which made her feel better about her balloon-shaped body.

That changed — was it already a year ago? Yes, very nearly twelve months ago she had come to stay in the Lakes Hotel as a celebration for having graduated from the nearby University of Nevada, Las Vegas with a degree in Engineering. (It was a great way to meet men, Dee Dee had been told; few women took such courses. But it hadn't worked.) She and her girlfriends had rented rooms here for a weekend of drinking, gambling, and fun — the same so-called fun, in Dee Dee's opinion, as the UNLV campus, only with different decoration.

The next morning she had woken up with this figure. Perfect, toned, and topheavy, dark of skin and hair, flawless of complexion. Now a lean and gorgeous island girl instead of a red-faced pasty white dumpling, Dee Dee finally knew what it was like to be the center of all male attention. All men's eyes sought her — starting with her chest and, sometimes, ending there. It wasn't what she had imagined, and yet she wouldn't trade it to have her old body back. Not yet.

None of her girlfriends seemed to notice that anything had changed the next morning, and none of the Hotel staff — who did notice — could properly explain to her how it happened. They gave her vague theories, ideas that had percolated through a generation of staffers one after the other. Some of the staff guessed that there had been a newlywed couple murdered there, back when it had been the pink-and-white Honeymoon Hotel, and whose ghosts now guided guests into the perfect relationship they had been meant to have. Had anybody seen these ghosts? Nobody she ever talked to had. Some said it was God's doing, that the Hotel had been blessed to become an oasis of love and fidelity in a desert of sin. Another going theory was atomic radiation, as the Honeymoon had been built the same year as the government began nuclear tests on the Nevada Proving Grounds. This was the quaint, antiquated theory that none really believed, a theory taken out and examined only when others came up short.

For a brief time she left the Hotel to find work, but she discovered that employers were less interested in her degree than in her double Ds. Some of the men who interviewed her were dreadfully patronizing, as if they could not bring themselves to believe in a beautiful woman who understood the difference between Bernoulli and Bearnaise. Dee Dee tried dating, and while she found it was easier to get the attentions of any man in the room, it was less easy to find a man she actually wished to be with. All her life she had been recognized only for the beauty inside; now, it seemed, men were only willing to see the beauty outside.

So she returned to the Hotel, applying for a job. Here, so the staff had claimed, she might find a match. Perhaps she would. After what the Hotel had already done for her, Dee Dee was prepared to believe anything.

Dee Dee moved up the ranks at the Hotel, and she saw for herself how visitors were assigned their perfect match: whether male or female, the Hotel realized that two people were destined for one another, and so it … arranged for them to be together. Occasionally it meant that someone on the Hotel staff would depart, or retire, in the company of his or her perfect partner. It could be thought of as a reward for their tenure. As staff departed, those below them moved up the hierarchy, graduating from the barely-seen roles in housekeeping and maintenance and cuisine to the highly visible roles of waitress, lifeguard, reception, or — like Elliott, who had been here longer even than Dee Dee — bartender.

When there were leftovers, when there were guests that could not be matched, they were brought onto the staff. Brett was one of those, Dee Dee recalled: a husband-to-be whose fiancée had been given her match, came to be at a loose end. Husbands separated from wives; girlfriends torn from boyfriends; ill-matched couples shuffled and paired off anew like a giant game of Go Fish.

For tonight, Dee Dee was a cocktail waitress, wearing the traditional themed costume of the Lakes Hotel: something scanty and suitably tropical. She had chosen for tonight a bikini top made of hard pink cups the shape of seashells, and something like a knee-length grass skirt, only sparkling and metallic. The overall impression was of a particularly naughty mermaid.

She drifted around the casino floor, listening in on the conversations. The Hotel left many guests untouched. A great majority of the visitors left without any suspicion at all that there was anything unusual about the Lakes. For a few, it changed everything. It was something of a game: who was a match for whom? With which visitors would the Hotel intervene?

Dee Dee would have placed money on Carter, the divorced father in 519. His story was the kind the Hotel seemed to love to rewrite. Stolid and reliable father of two, black man who married a white woman but with whom things didn't seem to last. He spent the first part of the night playing the quarter slots very conservatively, making each dollar last. Carter sat on a stool with one well-worn shoe propped up on the rungs, his white shirt open at the collar and his sleeves rolled back. Apparently he was in town with his two young-adult children for a family reunion. She gleaned a lot of information about them just drifting by with her cocktail tray.

“Tomorrow,” Carter was saying wearily to his daughter, a girl about twenty who was noticably lighter than he himself. “Your mama said she was going to be checking in tomorrow, that's all I know.”

“Which hotel, Pop?” she asked, tracing a brick-red fingernail across the chrome of the slot he was playing. From her body and her clothing, she looked just on the brink of adulthood: early twenties, if that. Black pegged jeans, loose pink-pinstriped blouse. She didn't inherit her father's afro, or if she had, she'd spent a fortune getting it straightened enough that she could pull it back into a ponytail. “Is she going to be staying here, Pop? Did she say?”

He reached into his red coin bucket for another quarter. From the sound of it, there were few enough left. “Sweetie, your mama didn't tell me that. When I made our reservations most of the other places was full, which is why we're staying at this one.”

“So maybe she had to make reservations here too,” the young woman guessed.

“That's a pretty big maybe, sweetie,” Carter told his daughter. “I wouldn't count that chicken yet.”

“Can I get you anything?” Dee Dee asked them politely.

“Beer,” Carter said. “Pyramid, if you've got it.”

“We do,” Dee Dee smiled.

“Can I get a beer, Pop?” the young woman asked.

“I'll buy you one,” her father said firmly. “Any more than that, and you're buying 'em yourself.”

His daughter flashed her identification: California license, twenty-one years old in January.

“Aurora,” Dee Dee said. “That's a gorgeous name.”

“Thanks,” she said, with a puzzled smile.

“I'll be right back with your drinks,” Dee Dee promised them.

“If you see my son in here, tell him I said he could have a drink, too,” Carter said, producing his own license for inspection. Evidently his first name was Winslow.

“What does he look like?”

“Black, like my daughter,” Carter said, snapping his wallet shut. “Might be hanging around with a tall white kid. That's my daughter's boyfriend, he's paying his own way,” he added with a grin, nudging her.

“Be nice, Pop,” she said, unruffled.

When she came back to them later with their drinks, Dee Dee committed the cardinal sin of any casino hostess: she asked how their gaming was going. She had been reminded endlessly not to inquire into a patron's successes, lest he suddenly remember how far in the hole he was.

“Not too bad,” Winslow Carter said, brandishing two small plastic coin buckets. “I got my money in this one, and my winnings in this one. When the money bucket is empty, I stop. I'm just hopin' to have more in the bucket when I'm done than what I started with, right?”

Dee Dee laughed and handed Carter his beer. “That's what we all hope for, isn't it?”

“You know it,” he said, returning the laugh. His eyes strayed, briefly, to the swell between Dee Dee's amply filled coconut cups. Divorced, but not dead, she noted to herself.

“Besides,” Carter went on with a roguish smirk, “if I don't come out ahead, what am I gonna brag about tomorrow at the reunion?”

“Brag about your two beautiful kids,” Dee Dee suggested.

“I been doing that so much I bet my whole family's sick of hearing it,” Carter said, and winked. “Now if only their mama saw things the same way, I wouldn't be gettin' all this grief. Everybody's gonna want to know where she's at, if she's comin' back. You know the story.” He gestured over toward where Aurora and her brother and a tall, well-dressed white kid were clustered around a video poker machine. “Their gram's gonna wonder how come they ain't married yet.”

“Sounds like my family reunions,” Dee Dee grinned, and patted him on the arm. “Good luck tomorrow.”

There was a tall, older gentleman in a gray silk suit standing by the roulette table, making bets on evens and reds and stealing looks down the open throat of the croupier's tied-off Hawaiian shirt. Dee Dee didn't quite know what to make of him.

“Can I get you anything, sir?” she asked, touching his elbow.

“From the bar?” he asked, and hesitated. It seemed as if he had had a bad day: he had a faint odor of sweat, and his jacket was rumpled as if he had spent most of the day sitting down. Travel weariness, Dee Dee guessed. The man twiddled his fingers nervously. “How about a scotch and soda?”

“Would you like me to charge it to your room?”

“Oh, no,” he said with a mysterious smile. “I could get into a lot of trouble by doing that. Company tab, you see.”

“You can settle the bar bill in cash when you leave,” Dee Dee advised.

He paused again. “All right. Schuyler Byerly, Room 611. Scotch and soda.”

“Scotch and soda,” she repeated.

“You know,” Byerly said conversationally, nodding his head toward the croupier. She was scooping stacks of chips across the green felt table with her rake, “She wields that thing like a riding crop. I asked her if she used that thing in private for a generous tip, but she turned me down flat.”

''Ah, so that's what he's after'', Dee Dee thought to herself. Rather than smile, she let her brow crease pensively and suggested, “You know, there are some mistresses up in Pahrump who charge for that kind of thing.”

“Oh, me? I wouldn't go all the way up to — no, I wasn't suggesting...” Byerly didn't finish the sentence for a moment. “They're probably full, anyway,” he concluded lamely. “Probably get more business than they can handle, place like this. Guys coming in from all over the country looking for … a mistress? Is that what they call it?”

''What a rotten liar'', Dee Dee thought, and smiled. “A dominatrix? I believe so, sir.”

“Maybe I'll go up there tomorrow,” Byerly said in a breezy voice. “Just to see what it's like up there. Unless you know of anybody around here...?”

Dee Dee gave him her best can't-be-bothered smile. “I wouldn't know, sir. Scotch and soda, was it?”

She made it around to Winslow Carter's son, partially to see if he needed anything else, but largely because she was curious about the young man and his sister: black father and, from the looks of it, a white mother ''in absentia''. The daughter, Aurora, seemed intelligent, healthy, and well-adjusted, if something of a daddy's girl. What would the son be like? Did he take after his mother? Would he leave the Hotel the same shape he arrived in? Could Dee Dee potentially be looking at a future staff-mate?

Kendrick Carter — she saw his license when she carded him — sat at ease on a black padded-vinyl barstool in front of a Bally Black & White Frenzy slot, his sister and her boyfriend together to one side. Though Kendrick paid little attention to the machine, he seemed totally in his element, brown eyes alert and scanning the room, smiling faintly. No king ever held court so casually. Kendrick was lithe and muscular, she could see that: his body was sculpted by an artfully snug black t-shirt bearing a grisly picture of Marilyn Manson and the singer's name in red gothic text. Somehow even sitting still, Kendrick managed to give the impression of a lion in the shade, lashing its tail.

Aurora she had already met, but the boy with his arm around her was a mystery. He was tall, and white, well-dressed and ''gorgeous'': suave and poised in the same extreme way Kendrick was commanding and carnal. His name was Vance, or so she had overheard; he asked only for water, so she hadn't had the opportunity to examine his license in detail (''bad Dee Dee!'' she thought to herself, ''you're not supposed to be picking up guests!''). Vance seemed very energetic and demonstrative, but in a strangely rehearsed way, as if everything he said were carefully planned, and every one of Dee Dee's reactions noted. It was a facade, she concluded. But a facade for what? What was he hiding?

Were they really together? Dee Dee couldn't tell. Vance never seemed to look into her eyes, or rub her shoulder, or kiss her, or show any exaggerated signs of affection. That arm around the shoulder seemed more like a brother-sister thing than boyfriend-girlfriend. Not that Dee Dee was interested in him (''bad Dee Dee!'', she thought, and giggled to herself).

“We'll tell your aunt we've got it all planned out,” Vance said, mocking the sensuous tenor of a stereotyped effeminate hairdresser. His eyes bright and amused. “Church wedding, white dress. Bridesmaids in lilac. Lavender and plums for the centerpieces, we'll have cameras on the tables at the reception. She will just ''die''.”

Kendrick and Aurora laughed at that. “My God, dude, you are just too good at that voice,” Kendrick said approvingly. “You must practice the hell out of it when I'm not looking.”

“You know it,” Vance said smugly, in something more like a normal tone.

“That's a good point, though, Vance,” Aurora said, squeezing his waist in her arm. “They're going to ask me when I'm getting married. At least I know Aunt Lena will, she always asks.”

“And if she thinks you're getting married to a white boy,” Kendrick said with slow relish, “she's really gonna freak. Pop said she almost had a heart attack as it was, when she found out he was marrying Mom.”

“Oh, no,” Aurora said, rolling her eyes. “I can hear it now. Couldn't I ''find'' a nice black man? Black men aren't good enough for me? Ugh. I wish this weekend were over already.”

Dee Dee chose this moment to sweep up and intrude. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked.

Their reactions were interesting, and different. Kendrick's eyes flickered first to her bursting bikini top, and then to her face. Aurora, her mouth set unconsciously in an expression of disapproval, sought eye contact, then dropped down to her outfit, then to her hair. But Vance started by looking at her—

“Jelly shoes?” Vance asked archly.

“I needed something pink,” she said, flattered that he had noticed. Nobody else had commented on her footwear.

“Nobody needs pink ''that'' badly,” Vance quipped.

Aurora laughed. “Don't give her a hard time, Van, I bet that outfit gets uncomfortable enough. Are those hard plastic?” she asked, reaching out a hand toward Dee Dee's seashell cups. “May I?”

“Sure,” Dee Dee assented, and Aurora rapped one of the seashells with her knuckles.

“Ouch, I'll bet that really chafes,” Aurora said, not sounding terribly sympathetic. She herself was so very lean and underendowed, there would be nothing to chafe, but Dee Dee was too polite to mention it. Not that long ago, Dee Dee's own body had been nothing to boast about.

“A little,” Dee Dee said, and grinned. “Great conversation starter, though. Oh,” she said, artfully sounding as if it were an afterthought, “can I get you anything?”

The three exchanged a look between them, but the final judgment seemed to be up to Kendrick. “I think we're just about done for the night,” he said. “Thanks for the offer.”

It was a definite dismissal, and Dee Dee's curiosity was still unsatisfied. Hoping to prod a hint loose, she gave them a big smile. “Good luck with your family reunion tomorrow. I can't wait to hear about the wedding.”

There was a definite chill in the air. Aurora's smile was polite and distant, Vance's bemused. Kendrick gave her a curt nod and another conversation-stopper: “Thanks for your help. We're going to be heading back to our rooms.”

=={{Separator|r|'''to be continued'''}}==

User:Devin

2009-02-15T07:43:52Z

Devin: /* Other Stuff */

{{my stories|category=Devin Hallsworth|name=Devin Hallsworth}}

==About==

Howdy, I stumbled on the [http://tsa.transform.to/| Transformation Story Archive] Back in my last couple years of highschool and prior to that I'd had no major exposure to the furry fandom. I was well aware of transformation as a plot device through numerous werewolf movies but the idea of benevolent and civil rather than snarling and barbaric were creatures was something new and too good to pass up. I've been writing for a couple years now(most of it crap. <.<) and am glad that I stumbled on this community as you guys are a blast to hang out with.

Other than that theres not really a whole lot to talk about besides that I write when I can and used to be hardcore at counterstrike. Oh and I'm from some weird place called Canada, you likely haven't heard of it. ;)

==Storys==

[[Fashionably Late]]

[[Contagious]]

[[Pray for Mercy]]

[[Transient]]

[[Volunteer]]

[[Deer Woman]]

[[Everything is Kaput!]]

[[Rules]]

==Other Stuff==

[[Devins Faves]]

[[Projects of interest to Devin]]

[[Category:Author]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Devin}}

Rules

2009-02-15T07:42:12Z

Devin:

{{Comment tag}}
{{byline|author=Devin Hallsworth|user=Devin}}

"I'm sorry but I am not authorized to either confirm nor deny the existence of god." General Dove said to the assembled press.

Before he even finished talking every press member in the room was on their feet, shouting out questions and trying to outdo their competitors for volume. The air force general just sighed and leaned against the press rooms podium, saying nothing.

It took a full three minutes of shouting and hand waving before the members of the press finally started to realize the general wasn't saying anything until they all started listening to the ground rules he had laid out at the beginning of the press conference. Most of them sat down quickly and elbowed the ones that hadn't and were still shouting to do the same, they were willing to cooperate now but every hand in the room was still raised.

General Dove smiled and picked one at random from the front row, whose press passes he could read. "Miss Cabezza?"

"Yes, You say you can neither confirm nor deny the existence of god but then does that mean that the experiment was a success? That you have confirmed that question one way or the other?" The older reporter asked.

The General took a second to collect his thoughts. "Yes and... no." The only sound in the room while he thought to himself was the sound of clicking cameras. "The question we were asking with this experiment wasn't so much, does god exist? As it was, Is this a knowable universe?"

"And how did this experiment seek to test this?" A reporter in the back row asked.

The general tried not to fidget. "To be perfectly honest I have no idea. I've read over all the papers and had a fellow who was working on the project try to bring me up to speed before the test but I am out of my depth. I leave any explanations of the test itself to Doctor Cambell who is sitting up here with me. However I did see the results of the test and although I haven't the faintest idea 'how' it happened I do believe that I along with the staff on hand for the test observed what happened correctly."

"What did you observe General?" Dove winced and again tried not to fidget in this strange body. Apparently the test staff were the only ones with any recollection of what had happened, but despite nearly two days of speculation, pouring over test data and interviews with those who didn't realize anything had changed the General was still no closer to knowing how to explain that three days ago everyone on earth had been hairless apes instead of bipedal foxes.

{{Separator|k}}

Keith set the pencil down and flexed out his wrists. As he stood up to grab a drink from the fridge he considered telling stories in a medium that was less hell on the wrists than drawing a comic. Sure he knew he wouldn't have as many fans as he would if he just wrote stories instead but he'd at least be able to tell the frigging story in less than a year. He shook his head every time he thought about how long certain story lines had been going on in other online comics and given how hard it was to draw out every piece of a story he could understand why.

He grumbled and sat himself down at his drawing desk. He was tempted to just write the idea out instead of putting it in comic form but he was way behind on updates to his online comic anyway and this project was the least he could do considering he owed his fans almost forty updates.

Besides, this way he knew the project would get finished. The idea was interesting enough to him. Basically he was just confronting several characters with the question about how they would act if given direct evidence that the universe wasn't bound by physics but rather by Keith's whims. It was a pretty interesting writing exercise.

Keith grinned guiltily as it also gave him an excuse to draw bipedal foxes. For a moment he sat at his desk and just fantasized about being in Doves position. To just have the mundane word turned on its head and to wind up as something... some...

Keith stared at his writing hand... hoof...

A quick check showed that his body was no longer the human one he had been born with but that of a bipedal mule deer doe. He wasn't sure which felt weirder, fur all over his body or the bizarre change in gender.

He chuckled nervously that he could find a gender change bizarre but no longer being human was something he could wrap his mind around. With a shaking hand... thing, he reached for his coke and as he did his eyes fell on the comic that he had been drawing, his mind taking the idea he had been playing with and applying it to what he was experiencing.

{{Separator|k}}

Devin grumbled and hit ctrl s. He pushed aside some pop cans and took the laptop off his lap and set it on the cluttered coffee table in front of him. He rubbed his eyes and wondered what he could do with the story.

Quite frankly writing about characters seeing a world bound by something besides observable rules who then curled into the fetal position at the thought that they were more or less just characters in a story was boring no matter which way he tried to spin it.

He gave up and gratuitously threw in a scene in which he transformed into an anthro Giraffe and changed genders for the hell of it before shutting the laptop down to go play some video games. Having gotten what little story there was in the idea out of her system which was really all she had wanted to do.

[[Category:Devin Hallsworth]]
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Transgender]]
[[Category:Comedy]]
[[Category:Fantasy]]
{{TF Type|Animal}}
{{TF Type|Gender}}
{{TF Degree|Anthro}}

Everything is Kaput!

2009-02-15T07:40:19Z

Devin:

{{byline|author=Devin Hallsworth|user=Devin}}

I waited for someone to pick up the receiver on the surface. Down here in the underground bunker we were isolated, but under normal circumstances there should have been a guard or the commander standing by the phone up top at all times. Obviously these weren't normal circumstances.

After a couple minutes I was rewarded with the sound of something clunking on the ground. When I heard a donkey try to bray through the other side I figured it must be one of the guardsmen that had been stationed up top.

"Can you speak?" I asked, doubting it if the news reports were to believed. Neither me nor Lang had worked up the guts to go to the surface to check yet. We weren't even supposed to leave our bunker for anything, just wait for an order to come down the chain of command. Only problem with that was that we weren't sure if there was anyone left in a position to give us the order anymore.
I got an angry sounding bray for my troubles.

"Ohhkay. Here's what were going to try instead. Bray once for yes, twice for no." I thought up a quick list to confirm identity. "Are you a Cougar?" Two brays. "Are you a Donkey?" One. "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?" One. "At basic training were you taught how to fire a rifle?" Two brays? I thought it over for a second. "Are you Miss Ivanchuck?" One. "Is your job to assist Captain Reinglad with his administrative duties?" One. "Last Sunday when I asked you out did I suggest a movie?" Two brays. "Go Lakers?" One bray. "When you were still human did I ever tell you that you had the biggest, most luscious pair of breasts?" A pause and then two very angry sounding bray's. I grinned, oh yeah it's her. "Good to hear from you Ma'am. I've got some questions about the situation on the surface, can you get ahold of the Captain?"

{{separator}}

Luckily for us me and Lang were old pro's at amusing ourselves without the benefit of any sort of mass media entertainment. We actually kept each other occupied for almost two straight days just by singing along to the cheesy pop songs on my iPod.

There's only so many Brittney Spears songs you can sing though before you start to ponder suicide. We weren't exactly provided cyanide pills or pistols down here, I could just imagine some military psychologists sitting in a room somewhere debating on whether they should provide us with something like that in case we survived the end of the world. But there were ways we could end it.

We made a game out of that too. Seeing who could find the most amusingly stupid way for us to kill ourselves first. Lang suggested jumping off a chair and onto our heads to kill ourselves, I one upped him though with the idea of death by drinking all the water we could handle without relieving ourselves until something broke inside. But It was Lang for the win the next day with his hang ourselves by our schlongs idea. Not really practical but it gave me a good laugh when he faked confusion about why it wouldn't work.

We chatted on the phone with the Captain and Miss Ivanchuck off and on. And because they couldn't hang the phone up you could still hear what was going on up there in the breif respites between me and Lang telling each other jokes about nuclear holocausts. Sounded like they were getting along pretty well. I bet she wanted it in the same room as the phone just to taunt me.

We reenacted star wars once. I guess I should say I reenacted star wars once actually. Lang just sat on on his chair and threw food at me, telling me to stop reenacting the crappy prequels and do the original trilogy. I ignored him completly. I think I disgusted him with how well I remembered those movies because he didn't applaud when I finished that last scene with Vader shouting out his anguish over Padme's death. We later picked the food he'd thrown at me off the floor and dusted it off to eat later, then cleaned the place spick and span.

I don't know if it was commie's or aliens or the digital fruit of some computer geeks digital loins that did this to the world but someone tried to contact us a week after we lost touch with our chain of command. They failed the authorization check though so we ignored them and went back to our game of 'Name that STD'.

Whoever had tried to contact us failed four more subsequent authorization checks over the next couple weeks and eventually gave up trying to convince us he was a member of our COC after a few hours of us singing Britney spears songs on the line.

But all things must come to an end as eventually we ran out of food. After contemplating going all Gandhi and deciding it was pointless we told the Captain we were coming up.

{{separator}}

I have bad allergies. It's why I can stand the canned air of our underground bunker so well. I hate fresh air.

The Captain and Miss Ivanchuck were waiting there for us when we stepped back onto the surface of the world. From the way they wouldn't leave eithers side I wondered if it should be Mrs Reinglad, though I didn't think it mattered. Neither of them could talk in anything but yes or no and judging by the fur creeping out of me and Langs skins we wouldn't be able to ask any questions in a short while anyway.

Not that there was much to ask. They were both donkeys. About the only thing worth learning was that the guards for our quaint little bunker had all turned into various different species and headed west to where the closest town was. The Reinglads seemed content enough to stay where they were.

I took a good look around, slightly disappointed by what I saw. As far as we could tell civilization was done, kaput, adios. And yet it all still looked the same. That farm house was still the same ugly yellow as it had been when I'd last seen it more than a month ago and the barn that wasn't fooling any commie spy by sitting on top of the concrete blast doors of the ICBM silo was still that same generic barn red. Why cant you paint a barn blue or something? Is there a law against barns being any color but red? I thought on that and corrected myself. 'Was' there a law against barns being any color but red?

"I cant believe this." I said to Lang. He looked up from watching his fingers fuse together into cloven hooves for a second.

"Cant believe what?"

I waved a paw that was growing pointy tipped claws at the pristine landscape. "The worlds over and I didn't have a hand in ending it. I signed up to baby sit nukes and instead of dying of radiation poisoning or in the single flash of a bunker piercing nuke I'm probably going to die of old age or eaten by a bear or something boring like that." I lamented. Putting my paws on my hips and staring out accusingly at the world.

I heard Lang try to choke out a comment and looked back to see his face push out in a muzzle. He made a couple attempts to talk before bleating in frustration and miming hanging himself. Cloven hooved hand holding an invisible rope over his head and inhumanly long tongue hanging out and everything.

I thought about it for a second and then felt stuff begin to twist in unnatural ways in my torso and realized I maybe had time for one more sentence. There was no way I was going to let Lang get the last word on me.

"Tempting." I said, considering as long as I dared, looking at the red fur on my paw and finally placing my species. "But I think I'm heading into town. I'm curious about whether that cute waitress at the bar is still as foxy as I remember."

[[Category:Devin Hallsworth]]
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Animal]]
[[Category:Comedy]]
{{TF Type|Animal}}
{{TF Degree|Full form}}
{{TF Degree|Superficial}}

Deer Woman

2009-02-15T07:38:57Z

Devin:

{{my stories|name=Devin Hallsworth|category=Devin Hallsworth}}
{{author note|This story is based off what I have read of a Cherokee myth of a creature called the 'Deer woman' A sort of temptress of young foolhardy men that would lure them to their doom.}}
{{title|author=Devin Hallsworth|user=Devin}}
[[Category:Story]][[Category:Devin Hallsworth]]
Daughter stomped a hoof down on the ground. "Mother, NO!" She exclaimed. Her mother still refused to become a woman and talk to her, instead staying as a deer and just allowing her displeasure to show through her body.

Older kin could communicate quite clearly through just body posture but she was still young and her mothers unwillingness to talk to her and actually explain anything with words infuriated her.

That was it, she was done with her. No more trying to reason, no more patience, no more hoping that her mother or grandmother had any bigger plans than sitting back and waiting for the white man to consume the whole world in his belly.

She dropped back onto all fours and walked away. Her walk turned to a run, just to get the pent up frustration she had been hoping to direct at her mother out of her. She was surprised when a shape darted in front of her and screeched to a halt, hooves digging up the floor of the forest.

"Daughter..." Her mother shifted up onto her back legs like a woman. She rubbed her hands against her bare skinned arms as her daughter did the same. Mother bit her lip and thought hard before saying. "We cannot help the Cherokee against the white man. That was never our role in this world. We helped them to protect their culture, we were supposed to save them from 'themselves'." She sighed at the hardened expression on her Daughters face. The argument was already lost. "We tempt those who care more about a beautiful womans body than their family and tribe. We tempt them and lead them to their doom so that the tribe will learn from their mistakes and make wise choices when they build their families."

Mother and Daughter stared at each other. Finally daughter asked. "Anything else?" Her eyes set hard and cold against her Mother. "Your beliefs are meaningless if the Cherokee are wiped out by the white man. Half their number have already died from the disease brought to this land."

Mother surprised her daughter by nodding. "Yes. You are right. The days of the Cherokee are numbered." Her Mother looked her back just as hard as she been getting. "And what of it? When the sun rises a hundred winters from now the European farmers will have replaced the Cherokee hunters. What business is it of ours?"

Daughter reeled back, her eyes blinking in surprise at seeing her mother this way. "Did we care for the Cherokee like our fawns? No. We cared that they not wind up as wretched disgraces of men who would let evil into their hearts and take without giving back from our forests. If we truly cared we would have shown them how to feast on the grass and the leaves or how to run swifter on all four hooves then any man could run on two legs."

"But.. but the Europeans WILL take without giving back!" Daughter sputtered, this wasn't something she had been prepared to argue when she had thought the encounter over in her mind.

"Yes. But even they can only take so much. They still need wood for their homes and thus they will not burn clear all the forests of the world. We will survive easily as long as there is grass to eat and trees to hide in." Mother sighed, plucking a handful of leaves off a branch and looking as though she wanted something to quiet her stomach. Or maybe that was some other expression on her face, her Daughter thought.

"But the Cherokee will die." She stated flatly.

Mother nodded. "The armies and spears of Europe are stronger and their mouths cannot help but water at the sight of all this land. The Rabbit will be eaten by the Fox who will sate the Wolfs hunger who will die at the Cougars claw who will be hunted by the White Man who will die of a wasting disease." Mother walked past her daughter. "But long after the Cherokee are gone the deer and the crow and all those who are smarter or more numerous than the white man will still be here. The cold winter cares not if you didn't store up enough fat to keep from starving."

She shook her head at her mother. "All the more reason that we cant just let the Cherokee waste away. When it is only the white man will we then try to guide their culture the way we guided the Cherokee? I cant barely understand half the words they have, let alone the concepts behind them."

Her Mother turned back to look at her. A very sad expression on her face as she stared at her daughter for a long time. Finally her face hardened against all emotion and she turned her back on her child. "Foolish, blind daughter of mine." She walked off into the forest, her words echoing back over her shoulder. "Cant you see that some ones hand already guides the white men?"

And with that her mother disappeared into the forest, just a faint shape of a deer fading out of sight through the trees.

The daughter thought hard about this, but it only confirmed her suspicions of her mothers cowardice. The idea that the White mens god actually existed was ridiculous. Why would a god who supposedly created the white man to rule even bother with creating all the other peoples of the world? The idea of one people being meant to rule everything would make sense if they were the deer or the rabbit, alone in an endless forest of trees and grass's.

She shrugged away the thought and fell down onto all four legs. She walked in the opposite direction of her mother. Out of the forest and towards the white mans land.

{{separator|stars}}

"I'm afraid I must pass on the next dance, I need to get myself some air." The Daughter explained curtly to the rather barrel shaped gentleman.

"Oh.. er very well. Good night to you Miss Harcott." He bowed and took his leave. Jess Harcott sighed once he was out of sight and made her way out of the manors crowded ball room to its veranda. She looked around and found herself alone. She flopped wearily onto a wooden bench. After looking once more and straining her ears for any sound of a person she might have missed she pulled her gown up and brought her leg up so that she could rub at her left hoof. It was still sore from that stupid stupid fall she had taken yesterday. Luckily no one had been around to see that, or take concern from her ensuing limp back to her estate. Her two hooves where a woman would have feet were the only things she couldn't change, the only thing that threatened to give her away for what she was. Luckily she had learned to walk well enough while wearing a low hanging gown, yesterday had just been a freak accident.

She slapped the hoof back on the wood and quickly brushed her gown down when she heard footsteps approaching. She tried to act casual but she her muscles were all just knots of anxiety. Why had she agreed to come to this asinine social function anyway?

Jess looked up at the man who was looking at her quizzically and felt her heart skip a beat for the second time in the last ten seconds. She waved, trying not to feel meek and the brown haired gentleman smiled and waved back.

Right, she thought to herself as she grinned. Brent Fulke. The youngest well made merchant and former militia man to step off the boat in all the time she had been living in Jamestown. She sheepishly diverted her gaze when she realized she had been staring at him without realizing he had been staring back at her.

Now she felt a right proper fool. Excellent job on the first impression there, she chided herself mentally.

It was thus quite a surprise when she felt the bench creak as he sat down next to her. Still smiling.

"Hello, my name is Brent Fulke. Might I have the pleasure of yours?" He asked courteously.

Despite her now rapidly disappearing anxiety and her well learned social manners she couldn't help but chuckle. "I 'know' who you are. Every young unwed woman in a twenty miles knows who you are."

Brent for his part smiled even wider. "And I believe I know who you are. You would be the former Mistress Harcott. Widow of the late Aidan Harcott?"

Jess blinked for a moment, until she realized Brent was a merchant and had likely had dealings with people who had business with her late husband. She nodded. "He passed away last year while on a hunting trip." She had gotten much better at explaining the cause of death with a straight face. "A deer knocked him down and kicked him to death."

"Ahh, unfortunate for him. Potentially a blessing for me." He said cheerfully. Jess was quite taken aback at this statement. "I'm going to make no secret of this. I have heard much of you and I believe I may be madly in love with you. You have your husbands wealth, a body that is quite plainly divine to witness and from what I have heard you have an .." He smirked for a moment and leaned back, his voice taking on an artificial haughtiness. "An unhealthy interest in intellectual pursuits totally besides the proper use of women in raising heirs."

Jess laughed. "Reverend Phelps would box your ears in if he heard you reciting him in that tone of voice."

"Yes, I've met his wife though and obviously his standards don't go too far beyond being able to push out a child." Brent chuckled, then his face drew itself a bit more seriously, though not so much that he could wipe that grin off his face. "Unfortunately for me... I could not bear to raise a child that had inherited his mothers stupidity or lack of beauty."

Jess felt her eyes light up. Long ago, when the deer women had been the temptresses of foolhardy young Cherokee men who thought beauty was more important than ability to raise a family a light punishment might have been considered to simply bear the man a child and then disappear back into the forest one night with his son. Jess knew she had to have some Cherokee blood in her alongside the deer.

She had better ideas though. Idea's that had been made impractical by her former husbands utter lack of ambition but would work perfectly for managing this wealthy young man. She spent much of the rest of that night out on the veranda with him, chatting about anything that seemed of consequence and sizing him up just as much as he was sizing her up.

{{separator|stars}}

If the events later that night were any indication she was already well on her way to slaving Brent to his animal desire and lust. She grinned as she wrapped her arms around him, at this rate he would be accepting orders from her without a hint of self determination by the end of the month. Of course she would have to leave some measure of his will to him that he didn't seem like an invalid to his fellow merchants. But for all intents and purposes his wealth and influence were now hers.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him deeper into her. She laughed in between catching her breath at the sight she got over his shoulders of her deer hooves. All it would have taken him to break her spell would have been for him to look down and catch sight of them.

Not that she had given him even one chance to do that. Her gown had fallen off her to rest on the floor, covering her feet but nothing else while she beckoned him to step forward into her embrace.

She lay there after he had finished the deed and collapsed on her, using enough of his strength to keep from squishing her more delicate frame. They stared into each others eyes for a minute before they both laughed. She had to admit that although the number of men she had bedded was not large and the number of bucks none existent he was definetly the most virile male she had even heard of, let alone met. Almost like something out of those old greek storys.

For his part he also seemed suitably impressed. "You deer women are everything I've heard."

She grinned at the compliment and pulled him into a kiss, until she felt the afterglow of pleasure completely annihilated by stark fear. She pulled her head away and made a futile attempt to flee as fast as she could, but his hands pinned her shoulders as well as he had pinned her hips.

"Deer women?" She said after calming a moment. Though it sounded lame even in her ears. She winced in apology at the bald faced lie.

Brent was the only one still grinning. He nodded. "I heard about you from a very very distant ancestor of my kind that I met when I first came to this land. I believe you would know him as a skin walker. Though in my homeland of Europe we are more commonly known as Lycanthropes."

Jess shuddered as she tried to push Brent away from her, she was powerless against his strength though. He leaned into and kissed her neck and shoulder while her mind raced to try and make sense of what he had said. She honestly had never heard of skin walkers before, then again she had been pretty young when she had left the forest. Had her mother just not gotten around to teaching her about them?

Or maybe her mother had ... grown tired with her foolish young daughter and thought it best for her to learn herself.

Brent pulled his head back up to stare down at her and it was all Jess could do not to scream or faint. The muzzle of a wolf now stared back at her, she could feel the fur of one pressing against her bare flesh everywhere he touched her as well. She cried and tried to look even smaller then the position she was in already did. She looked away and waited for it to be over.

She felt a clawed hand pull her chin back to look at him. "Don't be a fool like that Jess. I know your smarter than that." Despite the muzzle she thought she could still see a hint of a muzzle. "Nothings changed. If I had wanted a meal I would have gone and killed one of the deer that lived out in the forest."

She tried to sort through a haze of emotions, but the fear was rapidly diminishing. "What... What are you? You're not a man..." She pondered out loud.

Brent shook his head. The smile was clear in his tone of voice if not his canine mouth. "Not a man but neither a wolf. Long ago it was clearly us or them in Europe. The wolves that couldn't adapt died and were replaced by flocks of sheep and other domesticated animals." He licked her face playfully and despite herself Jess was not repulsed. "I sought you out. Not because of your wealth, beauty or intelligence. I sought you out because you are a wild animal that has gained all of these for the same goal that my kind has."

As Jess thought of it she realized she hadn't gone very far in her pondering beyond how to gain power over man. In her gut she had always known her ultimate aim but now she knew it in her mind as well. And she had even met another with whom she could strive to achieve it.

"They are a species of hunters that are too good at what they do." She sounded the idea out. Brent laughed and nodded, seeming thrilled that she was accepting their common goal.

"And in order for them to reach their full potential, it will be up to your people and mine to domesticate the wild human."

{{TF Type|Animal}}
{{TF Type|Mythical}}
{{TF Species|Wolf}}
{{TF Species|Deer}}

Volunteer

2009-02-15T07:35:19Z

Devin:

This was writen for Posti as part of the 2007 tsa christmas story exchange

[[Category:2007_Xmas_Xchange]] [[Category:Devin Hallsworth]] [[Category:Story]] [[Category:Equine]]
{{byline|author=Devin Hallsworth|user=Devin}}

This had to be a dream, Bob thought as he chatted up this charming young woman. A few months ago you couldn't walk into a tavern without bumping into every raw recruit and draftee in town. Now the place was empty, so many young men across Virginia had been drafted that when the new year rolled around in less than a month it would just be all the older farm hands like himself and all the young girls left without anyone to woo celebrating nineteen eighteen.

Bob felt a moments pain for all the young men in the trenches over there fighting the great war but only a moment. The young beauty in front of him was too interesting for him to stay down for long.

"I'm just saying, what with magic coming back into the world you'd think we could find better uses for it than killing each other." Bob told the witch. She nodded, her eyebrows looking heavy, yet she clung to the mug in front of her like it might grow legs and escape on her.

"I don't think I could bring myself to use some of what their teaching. I told them as much and they scorned me for not doing my part for the war, but I didn't back down and its not like they could turn away my skills either." She said. Her eyes getting distant. "First thing they tried to teach me was a concoction. Emits a really foul vapor, I guess they use it like they do mustard gas except instead of killing you it fills you with a burning hatred for everyone around you."

Bob, winced. He had heard stories like that. "That sounds even worse than the artillery." He commented, waving a hand to the tavern maid for refills.

The Witch nodded and finished off the last of her drink. Normally he wouldn't have been sure how to feel about offering drinks with such a finely dressed young woman but she was a witch after all. They made their own rules and pity the fool who objected to a woman asserting herself in front of one. He remembered a story of an angry mob with torches down south that had decided they didn't want a Witch in town. Some day he was going to visit Donkey town just to see it.

"It is nice to do constructive stuff with this gift but even then the governments are holding onto all the texts that we use to learn our craft, we only use the magic that they want us too." She explained, quickly diving into her.... however many drinks that had been for her tonight. As a matter of fact he wasn't entirely sure what number he was on. "The worst thing is that even though I'm not ending peoples lives with my magic I'm still not entirely happy with what I'm doing. I have a quota of people to transform into horses but its not always easy finding people who are willing."

Bob nearly snorted his beer out his nose in mid drink. He coughed and sputtered for a few moments before looking at her askance. "What?!"

She slowly batted an eye at him, seeming a bit out of it from the beer. "Not everyone wants to be a horse. I know, it sounds ridiculous." Her voice turned bitter and she stirred a puddle of spilled beer on the table with a finger. "Who wouldn't want to be a horse. I've been around horses all my life and their beautiful, powerful creatures. They ... well..."

"They can be graceful on the run, playful when they are just born and still just as content to graze as any fat cow out there." Bob went on, grinning. "Your preaching to the choir, or to the old farm hand rather."

The Witches eye's lit up after her drunken train of thought finally pulled into the station. "Hey... I bet YOU would like to be a draft horse!" She said.

Bob blinked, a few almost forgotten thoughts springing to mind. Working a farm in the summers didn't leave him much time for flights of fantasy but in the winter... He couldn't help but admit to being jealous of his equine charges as weird as the thought was.

He thought it over for a full minute before nodding back to her. "It's easy!" She exclaimed. "Heck I could do it right now, blindfolded even and with my eyes closed." She said, somehow not sounding all that reassuring. "And the works even easier and the pay is great, It doesn't even matter how old you are because the same magic that would make you equine can make you young."

Now this caught his attention. Being a muscle bulging, virile mountain of a horse AND get paid for it? Bob just wondered where he had to sign. Though maybe he wasn't thinking this through clearly, he had been drinking quite a bit... No!

"I don't see why not." He said suddenly, slamming his mug down and grinning. "I aint getting any younger. At least not until you work your magic." She laughed at that, getting up slightly shakily to her feet.

"Lets go then. I can do it tonight and stable you with the couple youngsters I already changed today." She said, lurching a little bit before he caught her.

"You sure?" He timidly asked, remembering what had happened to the last guy he knew who questioned a witches ability.

"Of course. Unless you've got some lose ends in town to take care of. I cant stay too long. Me and the horses for my quota have got to be on a train out of town by noon tomorrow." She asked. He thought about it and shook his head.

"Nah, just an old single farm hand without even any property of my own. All I got to my name is some money saved up in the bank for the winter and a small shack by the tracks." He said, He'd never liked that damn cabin any way. All it was, was just a place to rest his tired old back when he wasn't working. If he went with her he wouldn't have to worry about that again. If she wasn't so loopy he wouldn't have any hesitation to doing this...

{{separator}}

Oddly the transformation didn't seem to involve a brew made from eye of newt or incantations spoken out of a book as he had imagined. Instead it seemed to be just her running her hands across his body. They were in a barn near to the train station and he had just removed his clothes at her request. At first he had hesitated until he remembered that he wouldn't be wearing anything but a halter or maybe a saddle when he was a horse, also it wasn't like she was getting undressed with him.

He did think about what someone might think if they came in on this scene but if they knew what was good for them they would stay out of a witches business, especially an inebriated one...

"Bob, once I finish this you wont be able to talk with anyone but other horses. You will still be able to understand commands in English but if you have anything you think needs said to anyone you should tell me to either stop now or what message you would like passed along." She told him. He looked up from her hands and spooked at the sight of her eyes. He couldn't see the pupils of her eyes at all. It was like her eyes were rolled right back into her head, yet he had a feeling she could still see him fine.

"Fine. Yes, yes I'm fine! Don't have anyone to... no. I'm good to go." He stuttered, remembering just how different witches were supposed to be.

That seemed to be all she needed, her hands clenching around his thigh and... pulling his legs out. He watched slack jawed as she molded him in her hands like he was clay. She pulled and twisted and kneaded and slowly his shape lost what had made it human. Knee's were reversed, toes were compressed into harden hooves, muscles appeared where none had been even in his youth and through it all fur sprouted from wherever she laid hands on him.

As she moved up his body and more and more of him became equine he couldn't help but be fascinated by the process. Up until she came to his head that is...

She must have seen his anxiety as her hands began pulling a muzzle out. "Don't worry, you will keep your mind. " She said, grinning. "The courts were pretty quick to rule that destroying ones mind is equivilant to murder once they learned that it could be done." Despite this he couldn't help but wonder what it would take to bring a witch to justice if she did feel like it.

All his worries amounted to naught though. She took his hands off of his ears and didn't touch any part of his body again. He slowly blinked his eyes open, not realizing he had them clenched shut and looked down. Proud upright shoulders, leg feathering and long flowing mane. He was a draft horse alright!

Bob wanted to hug the witch and almost bowled her over before remembering that he didn't have arms to do it with anymore, instead he settled for nuzzling her hair. She smiled, patting him on the neck. "I'm glad you like it. Now if you'll excuse me I either need to head back to the tavern or to bed. Not sure which yet." She said before stumbling out of the stables.

He watched her go with a bit of worry. When she left the barn he quickly looked himself over to make sure he didn't have a spare leg or something like that.

Satisfied that she had in fact turned him into a horse without consequence despite her drunken state he pranced a bit in the barn.

"I see she found the last horse she needed." Bob stopped in mid step and looked into a stall to his left, when he still didn't see anything he looked down to see a cream colored draft horse laying on his side, looking up at him out of one eye.

"Hello." He said politely, remembering what the Witch had said about being able to talk with other horses.

"Yeah yeah.. you look to energetic to be anything but a volunteer." The cream snorted in reply, lifting his head up off the ground lazily. "Why anyone would volunteer to haul artillery guns around France around is beyond me though. Although mares is one reason I suppose. At least this way I stand a chance to get with a female. I was too ugly to even pay them as a human." With what looked like more effort than it probably was the cream rolled onto his stomach and pushed his bulk up onto his hoofs.

"Pulling artillery around... what are you getting on about?!" Bob demanded, feeling a weird urge to bite this slacker on the ear.

"For the army. Regular horses get spooked by the guns so that's why they were looking for people to turn into horses. Although they might get us doing other stuff too like hauling supplies or ammo when they don't have any guns for us to move." The cream snorted again. "I hope the roads in France aren't too damned muddy."

Bob shook his head in denial but what the cream said made sense now that he thought of it. He still didn't quite feel totally free of the effect the drink had on his thinking but he was able to piece together what had just happened.

"You mean to tell me I've just been drafted?!"

End

{{TF Species|Draft Horse}}
{{TF Degree|Full form}}
{{TF Type|Animal}}

Transient

2009-02-15T07:33:54Z

Devin:

{{byline|author=Devin Hallsworth|user=Devin}}
[[Category:Story]][[Category:Devin Hallsworth]][[Category:Transgender]]

/me waves good night to the channel!

Hyperion: Night Grey

LindaCow: BCNU grey fox!

Parrot waves back and decides it might be prudent to get some sleep himself.

You have disconnected.

Gregory reluctantly turned off Irc. He went through the computer, deleting his Irc client and using a program off the net to delete any record of its use from the computer.

He stripped down, remembering that this person had slept nude last night and took one more look around the room. It still looked the same as it had when he woke up this morning, of course it helped that he hadn't really touched anything besides the computer the whole day.

It was a Sunday. Although he could never be sure if he was supposed to work weekends more often than not he didn't. If he did he usually just let the phone ring so he didn't have to try and explain anything.

Today had been nice. No phone calls, no nosey neighbors, no family, no girlfriend or boy friend. Just an empty house and a computer with a decent internet connection, just the way he liked it. But now it was time to sleep.

Hopefully tomorrow would bring more of the same...

{{separator}}

Gregory rolled over onto her stomach when she felt someones leg poking her in the back. Or at least she tried to roll onto her stomach.

She felt groggy as she tried opening her eyes, kicking half heartedly at whoever it was behind her that had woken her up. She tried rolling onto her stomach once again and couldn't quite manage it. She blinked her eyes open and half expected to find herself sandwiched between two people. She'd had that happen before and it wasn't a pleasant memory.

Gregory was a bit surprised to not see anyone in front of her and propped herself up on an elbow to look around. When she noticed her pregnant belly she winced, thinking that this was going to be a long day.

When she felt the person behind her reach a hand around to rest on her stomach she 'knew' it was going to be a long day...

"Morning." He said dreamily. She mumbled a grumpy good morning back to him and swung her legs off the bed. Slowly standing up, already hating how unwieldy she felt balancing her weight like that.

She walked into the bathroom, sitting down on the toilet to relieve herself while her husband(god, at least she 'hoped' it was her husband) got out of bed himself. As she washed her hands she looked herself over in the mirror nonchalantly. Blond, brown eyes, slim build (considering) and about her mid thirty's if she didn't miss her guess.

Gregory pointedly ignored her husband and walked past him out of the bedroom, finding her way to the kitchen where she began rooting around in the fridge. She decided on some left over chicken, not worrying about what her husband might think as he was likely used to his wife getting some weird cravings by now.

She rubbed a hand along her belly, feeling its exact dimensions as she ate and contemplated. Gregory thought she might have been... six? Maybe seven months along?

Her husband came out of the bedroom wearing coveralls and a high visibility vest and pecked her on the cheek as he grabbed his keys. "See you later." He said before heading for the door. This elicited a surprised expression from her that he luckily didn't see as he was already on his way out.

An early riser that one, she thought as she looked at the clock on the microwave and saw it was just fifteen minutes past five. She thought that over as she waited for the sounds of his vehicle leaving.

When she was fairly sure she was alone she did a quick check of the apartment. No other tenants, no kids, kinda messy...

She stopped in mid step when she saw the computer sitting on a desk in a corner of the living room.

As much as she wanted to she kept herself from turning it on until she completed her survey of the place. She found no day planner, nothing written on the calendar and their was no other set of keys in her purse for her to drive anywhere anyway which was good as it meant she likely wasn't expected to go anywhere by herself and thus didn't have to worry about breaking any appointments.

She thought it over, having found a picture of her husband driving what looked like a big truck she figured given the coveralls he must drive for some sort of industry, either logging or construction. Which meant early mornings and late nights. She grinned, suddenly the day wasn't looking so bad.

Fairly positive that she had nothing set up and no one coming today she turned the computer on and grabbed the chicken she hadn't finished. Grabbing a coke from the fridge as well as she plopped herself down in front of the computer. She went over everything she had to do in her mind.

There were a couple story's she was working on, she should really head by the fur suiters forum and say hi as it's been a while, also she wasn't going to get any editing done on wiki just by saying she was going to get to it. But before any of that she downloaded an Irc client off the internet and connected to her usual channel.

Now talking in #Fursuiters

mA0Champion: *pounces a grey fox!*

Gregory giggled and typed back.

/me Ooofs from the pounce, reaching up to scritch the miniature dragon. "Hey! How's things?"

End

{{TF Type|Mental}}

Pray for Mercy

2009-02-15T07:32:02Z

Devin:

{{Comment tag}}
{{byline|author=Devin Hallsworth|user=Devin}}

Phillip slammed his coffee mug down on his desk. "THATS IT!" He yelled as he felt the change start with his chest. "WHO THE HELL PUT THAT IN MY COFFEE!?" He spat out, enraged as he felt his breasts begin to grow just as he lost the hair on his chest... again.

The class looked up from their text books, he caught a couple snickers from some of the students but couldn't say for sure which one it had been.

He thought he'd been smart today, bringing his coffee with him in a thermos and not letting either it or his lunch out of his site but someone had out thought him. Or maybe there was just a new spell on the internet that he hadn't heard of, something that could initiate a gender switch spell without actually having to touch the prank victim or get him to ingest anything.

Phillip just glared at the class for another few seconds before letting them get back to their textbooks. He noticed Trevor's eyes were glowing as he had his hand on his textbook, a scrying spell. Phillip almost looked away until he noticed Trevors other hand was below the desk.

She waited a few minutes for the rest of the change to settle in before getting up. Wincing at the feeling of not having anything between her legs again. At least this time she knew the cure and wouldn't have to spend another two weeks combing the internet for the reversal spell and feeling awkward about pissing sitting down. If she ever found out who the genius was who figured out how to do magic and started posting actual honest to god spells on the internet she would do something really unpleasant to him.

She cleared her throat when she was standing beside's Trevors desk and his eyes suddenly stopped glowing. He looked up, trying not to look like he'd just been doing something.

Phillis reached into his desk where his hand had been and pulled out his cellphone. "No text messaging during class." She said.

"What? That was in my desk, how could I even see what I was doing?" He tried to complain. She patted his textbook.

"Dont play coy with me, I know you were scrying your text messages and If I catch you doing it again Im going to give you detention." She said, trying to look stern even though she had a feeling some of the other students were ogling her. "You'll get your cell back tommorow when I have you for social studies."

{{Separator|k}}

She walked out the back door of the school and pulled out her pack of ciggarettes. A couple of other teachers had already beaten her out.

"Hey Phillip." Tom greeted, he winced as he said it. "Bad day?"

Phillis shook her head. "Ooohh damnit, I thought I could be smarter than these kids today but someone got me anyway."

"Well at least they just hit you with the standard bimbo spell." A lady Phillis didn't recognize said. "Trace." She said in explanation. Phillis nodded, then as she lit up she looked the librarian over again. Fox ears and tail, red hair and four breasts. Luckilly Trace had been wearing sweat pants, Phillis remembered getting a skunk tail(and glands goddamnit.) on a day when she had been wearing a pair of jeans without a belt, she'd needed to spend the rest of the day holding up her pants with one hand because she couldn't find anyone to teach her last two classes.

The constant attempts by some of her students to spook her hadn't helped much either.

"Is there a new transformation spell out I haven't heard of that can change people at a distance?" She asked as she puffed out.

"Not that I know of, still just the standard powder enchantment that you can put in peoples food and drink." Tom said. "The government's finnaly clamping down on the internet providers, they've actually had a bit of success in steming the flow of new spells onto the internet from where ever they come from."

Phillis shook her head. "No, not from where they come from. I've been watching that search since the first time I heard someone was actually casting magic based off spells they found on the internet, so far not even the intelligence agencys have had any luck tracking whoever is posting this stuff to the internet. The only luck they've had is in trying to shut down the websites with the spells on them as fast as they pop up. Of course so many people are looking this stuff up that at least a few find it and save it before the Companys can clamp down." That reminded Phillis that she needed to stop by the park on her way home and find some widflowers, she'd need them for the counter spell.

Trace's ears flattened against her gorgeous hair. "And then you've got the people who are yapping on about the shutdowns violating their right to view and share this information, never mind the people who get caught with four breasts and a tail when some kid decides to play a prank with this stuff." Trace sobbed a little and stared down dejectedly at the aforementioned mammary's. "I had a hard enough time finding the counter spell for that midget spell and this one looks customized, how long am I going to have to walk around with four breasts before I find a way back to my own body?"

Phillis snarled and threw her ciggarete down on the ground, stomping it beneath her shoe. "You know what?! I am tired of being a target! If these kids want to play rough Im going to show them they dont know the meaning of the word!"

{{Separator|k}}

"Dig in class! There is plenty for everyone!" Phillip said as he motioned towards the stacks of pizza boxes that sat on the desk closest to the door. At first everyone seemed hesitant, this had to be a trap they were lkely thinking. But then one student took a piece and bit in, as Phillip started the class the rest of the students watched the brave one for any signs of a change.

After a few minutes with no signs one of the students in the back piped up to ask if they could still get some pizza.

"Well of course you can. Just grab some pizza and head back to your desk, you can follow along while you eat."

Phillip tried his best to not look too suspicious as some of the students elbowed for room to get to the pizza, it wouldn't actually change any of them, the teachers using the same tricks that had been used on them was forbidden by the parents. But Phillip knew some of them would be wishing they had after they realized what it did instead. He picked up a marker and started talking as he added notes to the whiteboard, waiting for the spell to hit.

It wasn't until about five minutes into his lecture that he peeked over his shoulder and saw that all but the least disciplined students had set aside half eaten pizza to grab their text books and were following along as he spoke. A couple who the effects were taking longer to hit were looking pretty confused, no doubt wondering why they were feeling the urge to straighten up and pay attention.

Ten minutes later and the effects had settled in to the more well behaved students, but the trouble makers suddenly found themselves completly unable to tear themselves away from their text books. Phillip saw Trevor was scrying his text book as fast as he possibly could, after a couple minutes he dropped it to the floor, scrabbling to grab his back pack and fish out the rest of his text books. He began magically syphoning the knowledge from his biology text book straight into his brain as fast as he could. Phillip decided now was a good time to explain.

"No doubt some of you are wondering by now where the newfound appreciaton for education is coming from and some of you have likely guessed the source already." Phillip grinned. "But just so you know there is a counter spell. And after I give you a couple of days so that it sinks into you that the magic pranks need to stop I intend to give it to you. But until then... how about I read from the dictionary?" He said, an evil grin on his face as his whole class looked up in rapt attention as he began. Except for Trevor who couldnt seem to tear himself away from his books.

"Nnneedd.. morre.. KNOwwlledge..." He muttered incoherntly as the biology text hit the floor besides his social book and he lunged for the dictionary in Phillips hands.

The end.

[[Category:Devin Hallsworth]]
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Transgender]]
[[Category:Comedy]]
[[Category:Fantasy]]
{{TF Type|Gender}}
{{TF Type|Mental}}

Contagious

2009-02-15T07:27:05Z

Devin:

{{Comment tag}}

By Devin Hallsworth

General Staton tried not to look too puzzled as he was lead to the room Hick's was going to use for the demonstration.

"I'm afraid I dont understand proffesor. If you think you've figured out how this thing is transmitted why not go straight to the brass in charge of quarantine?" Staton asked, wondering why the proffesor would want to come to an airforce general with regards to information about an infectious agent that was spreading like wildfire.

"We want to be careful with what our test data is showing here. I've heard that you're a fair man of science as far as the military brass goes and I wanted to enlist your help in convincing the people higher up the chain of command that what our tests are showing is actually happening." Hick's said as he rushed the general down the back corridors of the CDC campus in Atlanta.

The general shook his head. "I'm sorry but why wouldn't they listen to you? This just isn't making any sense to me." He wondered if he was actually going to see one of the afflicted in person. He'd seen the images on CNN like everyone else, but to see it in person... "We have a contagious mutagen loose in the states and a large portion of the first world that is causing massive bodilly changes in people and you dont think the top brass will be willing to listen to what the centre for disease control has to say?"

The proffesor suddenly stopped and turned to look at him with an intensity in his eyes that Staton didn't like. "Thats just the thing. We dont think it is a mutagen. We think it may not even be biologically based at all!"

The proffesor grabbed his shoulder and practically dragged the General back into motion. Staton allowed himself to be led as his mind tried to wrap itself around what Hick's had just said. Instead of asking Him for a better explanation his mind poured back through a life times worth of science and science fiction material he'd read.

"You mean... like quantum probability or something?" He pondered. This got a massive nod of affirmation out of the proffesor.

"YES! Yes, I knew you were the person who could help us explain this. You're familiar with the idea that there is a small but finite chance that at any moment, even right now you could suddenly change into a pink teddy bear or a goat or a block of cheese or whatever." Hick's finnaly brought them to the demonstration room. He signed a clipboard handed to him by an armed member of the campus's security.

"But.. the chance is supposed to be so small that theres practically no chance. Proffesor this is happening all over North America and Europe." Staton shuddered at the thought of spontaneusly dying and leaving nothing but a block of swiss where he was standing. A week ago it wasn't even a thought, now after what he'd seen and heard of it was another possibility he couldn't readilly dismiss.

"Yes it is. But we think we have test data that shows this idea in action." Hick's lead him into what looked like a conference room. "Most of the changes once you figure out the pattern are actually fairly uniform, it was just so weird that it didn't even occur to us until we had exhausted every other avenue of thought and were just tossing random idea's out hoping for a hit."

Hick's motioned for Staton to take a chair while he pulled a television set over. He popped a video cassette in and took a chair next to Staton.

Staton watched curiously as on the video tape a volunteer who had to be military with that haircut and build walked into the room. He wasn't wearing anything but a hospital gown but he had a look of grim determination on his face.

"Please sit down. We will begin the test momentarilly." A voice said over a loud speaker.

"We had to find volunteers for this test. One of the problems with this is that it doesn't appear as though its communicable to animals. Only humans are afflicted." Hick's said in explanation.

"Afflicted by what?" Statton asked. Hick's didn't answer so he instead turned his attention to the experiment on the video. The only chair in the room was one in front of a computer monitor. Staton noticed that the monitor was turned away from the camera which seemed kind of odd to him.

The soldier took a seat in front of it. He only gave the monitor a seconds glance before looking around at the other wise empty room. "Alright, we are beggining the test. Please look at the monitor." He seemed confused at first until he looked at the monitor. The confusion only deepened for a couple seconds until a grin broke out across his face and he let out an amused chuckle.

Staton leaned forward in his chair as he watched the soldier lean forward in his, the look of unrestrained amusement plainly evident on his face as he studied the monitor. "Heh.. who. God that must be the.. Who drew this?!" He tore his gaze away from the monitor to look right at the camera, "This." He looked back at the monitor and suppresed a snicker behind his hand before looking back at it again almost sheepishly. Like someone who knew they shouldn't be laughing but couldn't help it. "This has gotta be the damned cutest thing I've ever seen. I... Oh my god that baby rabbit is just..."

"Now switching off the monitor." Whoever was supervising the test said. He watched the test subject stare at the screen for a few more seconds before a look of shock seemed to cross his face. He looked around the room for a few seconds as if in a daze before turning to the camera.

"Hey.. uh..." He started to say something, but choked himself off with what looked like some effort as if remembering that he was here for something. He sat up straight and from the looks of it tried not to fidget, but his body was very aggitated. It didn't take more than thirty seconds for what Staton had seen on CNN to start.

The test subject looked startled by something. He half jerked up out of his seat, sitting back down after reaching a hand into the back of his hospital gown. Statton almost wished there were multiple view points available for this test until the object burst from the soldiers rear, knocking over the chair.

The General looked on with just as much amazement as he had the first time he'd seen it. The soldier looked back over his shoulder with a slight bit of concern that almost seemed to melt away into a pure unadulterated smile the longer he looked at his tail.

It grew in length until it was long enough that the soldier was essentially a tripod. Statton was so distracted by the tail he hadn't noticed the other changes. The legs reformed before anything else, the feet stretching out into the long clodhoppers of a kangaroo. The chest barreled as Staton watched, arms losing their definition and dexterity as the muzzle pushed out. He saw though that like the rest who had been afflicted he didn't seem to gain fur, if anything he seemed to lose definition. Where before he might have had skin or fur he now seemed to have... Staton didn't even know what to call it, cartoon skin? Either way, as cute as whatever pic had been on the monitor Staton somehow doubted it was as cute as the purple cartoon Kangaroo that was now balancing solely on his tail and giggling in delight.

"Its the picture!" Hick's blurted out. Staton looked over at him in bemusement, as if just remembering he was there.

"Sorry?" He asked as Hick's thrust a few pages of printouts at him. The printout looked like a comments list or something for what he guessed was the picture the soldier had looked at. TOO KEWT!! Kawai to the nth degree and similar such messages seemed to be the bulk of what was posted. It didn't seem to get much more intelligible than gushing out how said picture was the cutest thing any of them had seen.

"We didn't notice it until much later, but everyone of the first people afflicted looked at this picture online not long after it was posted. We also checked the witness accounts and although we can't ultimatly confirm we do believe that there were ZERO cases before this picture was posted online last thursday. We've tried having some of the staff here look at the picture but not long after doing so they all wind up like Gunnery Sergeant Smitty here." Staton looked up at the cartoon roo again, trying to relate it's gleeful bouncing around with what he knew of Marines.

"So what? You're saying a picture did this to these people?" He asked, unable to take his eyes off the gut twistingly cute roo on the TV.

"We think so. Although from what we've seen, after a person has been transformed we think it may also be possible for people who observe the cartoon like person for a sufficient period of time to also succomb. We have data to back this up as well." Hick's said, reaching to turn the tv off.

Staton, jerked suddenly. Having an urge to want to turn the tv back on before clamping down on it and wondering where it came from. He tried to regain his train of thought, but couldn't concentrate beyond a sudden pain in his mouth.

"Whats wrong?" Hick's asked, looking concerned.

"Its nothing. Just a stupid tooth ache." He explained, trying to remember what he should be talking to Hick's about.

"A tooth ache?!" Hick's seemed genuinely alarmed, which made Staton chuckle at how silly he was being.

"Yeah. Its just a tooth ache. No biggey."

Hick's expression saddened and Staton wondered why. "No... No Im afraid its not nothing. Thats one of the symptons of over exposure." Staton wondered what he was talking about, but then his eyes drifted across one of the comments on the page he was holding proclaiming the picture to be tooth achingly cute.

The End.

[[Category:Devin Hallsworth]]
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Anthropomorphic]]
{{TF Degree|Superficial}}
{{TF Degree|Anthro}}
{{TF Type|Mental}}

Fashionably Late

2009-02-15T07:23:53Z

Devin:

{{Comment tag}}
{{universe|Xanadu}}
{{author's note|Hi, this is my first submission to shifti. This story is set in Bryan Derksen's Xanadu setting and will be posted to the Xanadu story archive as well.
Before that though I wanted to use it to test posting here and to hopefully get a couple comments on it from people other than the guys on the TSA Mailing list where it was originally submitted.

Feel free to comment and point out anything you like or dislike.

The Xanadu setting was created by and is the intellectual property of Bryan Derksen.}}

{{byline|Devin Hallsworth
|user=Devin}}

Jacob kicked the flat on his car. Frustrated but not letting it get to him. He was about another hour from Xanadu, this was going to take a bit of time but once he got the spare...

Jacob mentally kicked himself. He'd taken the spare out of the trunk to make room for his costume and bags. He hadn't even thought anything of it when he did, heck he'd never even had to change a tire in his life until right now.

He reached into his pants pocket for his cellphone. Everything was fine, he told himself. At worst he'd be a few hours late after he found a tow
service that could come out. He'd been looking forward to Xanadu, but more as a sightseer than anything else.

He didn't really have any friends he was meeting there, it was just an opportunity to test the costume he'd made before taking it to an anthro convention and maybe get some ideas from looking at what other people had done.

Xanadu was the BIG one. He really didn't care how his arctic fox costume stacked up against some of the stuff he'd see there, he was just looking for ways to better represent his avatar and what better place to do that than Xanadu.

Feeling better, his only worry now was how much the bill was going to be from the tow company...

{{Separator|k}}

Mack heaved the booth wall over to get at some of his costumes that lay scattered beneath it. He cursed as he saw some of them were going to need repairs.

"Well this is just lovely. Not only does someone take off with my cash bag in the chaos but some of these thousand dollar full body costumes are going to need stitching as well and its not like I can just repair them and sell them for full price with a clean conscience." He grumbled. Fiona gave him an out of character leer in response.

"At least you didn't come as a Victorian era Vixen anthro." She said, gingerly helping him pick up some of the costumes that lay scattered. Though she had to take it easy as she was wearing a corset under her dress they had found out she couldn't take off in public, she was just grateful she hadn't come in a bodice. That made Mack feel a bit guilty although he wondered if it was just something in Fiona's head that wouldn't let her...

"Well... Maybe I would have liked to come as something. I only didn't because I wanted to focus on the business while I was here." Mack replied, examining a Minbari head that he'd sculpted by hand just a month before the convention. He'd sold the other one he'd made a couple hours before. It made him wonder where that person was now. "I had that problem at the last Anthrocon I went too remember? I had a lot of fun with that coyote morph costume but I couldn't concentrate on running the booth."

"Hmph, I'm sure you would've just loved coming in that female anthro Girrafe costume you've been working on for the past year." She said bitterly. Mack imagined that if a proper lady was allowed to lose her cool and cuss people out in public Fred.. er... Fiona would be right now.

He considered what to say for a second. Part of him wanted to snap at Fred that no one had made him come to Xanadu dressed as an Victorian styled Vixen but considering he was the one who had designed and built the costume for him...

"Sorry.." He said, feeling a bit inadequate. What business did he have getting angry? He should be trying to be there for Fiona like she was trying to be for him by helping him salvage what was left of his booth.

"No, don't. Don't worry about it." She said with a sigh. "I know I shouldn't be acting this way. I just wish I had someone to help me through this." She said, sitting down on the shattered remnants of his table, careful about not getting her dress caught on anything. "I realize its greedy of me to think so but a part of me actually wishes you had come in costume, then maybe we could have helped each other with this." The sadness in her voice was much more muted than her words seemed to say, but Mack could tell just by looking at her that there were some of the psychological changes in her head that he'd seen in some of the other convention goers who had been struck.

Mack considered his words and realized that he could only really bring himself to say one thing. Fred had been his friend and by default Fiona was as well. "Fiona I'm sorry I didn't come in costume and now for more than just one reason. I want to be there to help you because your my friend and even if it meant being a lady so that I would be able to share this with you I would." He left unsaid that he couldn't. He hadn't come in costume and that seemed to be that. He felt guilty after saying it, sure it was one thing to say it but did it really mean anything when nothing could be done?

Fiona smiled, still looking a bit woeful but seeming reassured that at least her friend was there for her as much as he could be. "Thank you."

{{Separator|k}}

Jacob stumbled into the room he had reserved numbly. He dropped his bags on the bed and just looked around for a second, not really believing something so out of this world could happen in such a mundane place as a hotel.

Actually, he thought of that for a second. It was Xanadu it had happened at.

Easily the biggest gathering of costumers anywhere and it gets hit with something that changes everyone into what their costume is? The more Jacob thought of it the more deliberate it seemed to him. Not that it helped considering he couldn't even begin to guess who, why or most importantly how.

He walked over to the window when he heard the sound of car horns blaring from outside. His room wasn't that high, fifth floor. From here he had a pretty good view of the barricade about twenty soldiers were setting up on the street, blocking off traffic from the hotel. The army had arrived just a few minutes behind him, he'd been lucky to get in when he had.

He turned around slowly. His eyes going straight to the bag that held his costume. He walked over timidly, almost as if he expected it to jump out at him. Carefully he unzipped the bag and looked at the arctic fox head that stared back at him.

What am I doing? He asked himself. Something weird had gone down here and he had no Idea what would happen if he put that costume on, so why was he doing it? He slowly slid the head on, closing his eyes and waiting to see what would happen.

After a few moments of nothing he opened his eyes to see a very limited field of view of his hotel room. He could feel the material of the mask on his face but that was it. Maybe he needed to put the whole costume on, a part of him thought frantically.

A few minutes later he was fully clad in the costume from head to toe. He walked into the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror for a while. Watching in case it should start on him any second now...

Half an hour later he bit back a flood of tears as he tore the mask off and slammed it against the bathroom counter. He threw it out of the room without even looking and sat down on the toilet and shuddered. When he finally got control of himself he took the costume off and carefully packed it back into his bags. He was heading home.

He'd lived his whole life like this after all, nothing was going to stop him from continuing to do so, not even a missed opportunity like this. He looked around, wondering where the head was. He found it on the other side of the bed and couldn't fight back his grief anymore as he looked over the damage he'd done to the muzzle.

{{Separator|k}}

Mark had set up his sewing machine after attempting to leave and getting rebuffed by the army outside the convention center. Fiona and him had salvaged an intact desk from another stall whose user had likely abandoned the convention.

Luckily his sewing machine had survived the event intact. Some of the costumes he hand repaired but for the larger gashes and tears the sewing machine came in handy. He knew he wouldn't likely turn a profit selling them but if he just left them that meant losing all the money he had invested in making them as well and Mack wasn't rich.

Fiona seemed to have picked up a bit of sewing skill from her transformation as well. Mack had been a bit hesitant to let her help at first but she was handling a sewing needle more deftly than someone who'd never touched one before had any business being able to.

He wasn't sure how long he was going to be here, but as long as he was stuck he could at least get some work done to try and recoup his losses. Mack snorted as he thought that. Loss in profit, at the biggest costume convention around. His only gain from this convention was that Fiona it seemed couldn't wear anything but period clothing, which meant she was thinking about commissioning Mack for a wardrobe seeing as he'd not only done the vixen part of her costume but the Victorian style dress as well.

Even with that though he was looking at a severe hit to his budget for this year. What he really needed were some more commissions from new costumers but he doubted any of the transformees at the convention centre were interested...

He looked up when he saw someone walking across the debris towards the doors. His stall had been fairly close to the entrance to the costumers hall, something he'd thought would help rake in a little extra cash but instead had only gotten his booth trampled.

The kid didn't look that old, maybe mid-twenties at latest. He was carrying two bags with him and was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. He must not have gotten caught in costume when whatever that was happened, Mack thought. He almost started to think 'lucky' until he saw the expression on his face. It was a brave one but he had red eyes that gave away earlier grief.

The kid slowed down as he walked past and watched what Mack and Fiona were doing. Mack wasn't sure what to say, he doubted this was a potential costumer... in fact unless he missed his guess the kid probably already owned a costume. Still he felt like he aught to say something.

"Hi." Mack said casually.

The kid looked back at him and then looked back at the full helmet he'd been working on. "Hey."

Mack had decided to take a break from the other costumes for a moment to repair the damage to his anthro giraffe helmet. The leg stilts had escaped damage thank god but one of the horns on the helmet had been bent. Mack was almost ready to put the synthetic fur back on the head.

"Your a costumer?" The kid asked. Mack nodded, wondering if maybe he'd been off on his guess.

"Yeah, hold on a sec." Mack reached into his pocket and fished out a business card. "I'd like to be able to show you some of the stuff I have here but a fair bit of it got damaged by the stampede of people trying to get out. You can check my website for some good examples of what I do." He wondered if he was coming on too strong, but then again the kid had asked.

He looked at Mack's business card. "Mack Corrinth." The kid smiled and raised his hand, which Mack shook. "Jacob Faye. And uh, actually I was just wondering if you did repairs?" He put his bag down and unzipped it, pulling out the head of a costume.

"Let me see." Mack said as he took it from Jacob's hands. The muzzle was deformed, Mack felt along inside the head. It was a plastic mesh with some foam overtop. some of the stitching where the muzzle met the skull had torn which caused the muzzle to just droop to the side. It just was a matter of some new stitching and checking to make sure the foam wasn't out of place. "This ain't nothing. I can do this for you right now."

Jacob smiled when he heard that. "Thank you. How much?"

Mack shook his head and waved the question away. "No charge. Its good make, It deserves good treatment." He fetched his stuff and got to work before Jacob had a chance to say anything.

Jacob looked like he wanted to protest for a second, but then he just smiled and sat down to wait. "Yeah... yeah it is. I shouldn't have..." Jacob started to say then shook his head. "Heh, I'm heading to a couple furry conventions later this year. Thanks for repairing it. Are you sure I cant pay you something? I came with a couple hundred dollars spending money."

Mack just shook his head.

{{Separator|k}}

Jacob almost thought that maybe he should try to press the guy into accepting payment. It was obvious as he sat and waited how badly the guys business had been hit by the event. His booth was trash and a lot of the elaborate looking costumes looked in need of repair.

He smiled back at the vixen anthro that was hand stitching another costume while Mack worked on the muzzle that Jacob had damaged in that fit of anger. Jacob realized he wasn't really that bad off now that he thought of it. When he went home earlier that day he wouldn't have to worry about what his parents would think, who didn't even know that he was a furry. Wouldn't have to worry about his job, going out in public looking like...

"There we are, told you it was no problem." Mack said, suddenly handing Jacobs mask back to him. Jacob blinked in confusion, thinking that it'd only been at most two minutes. He took the mask and turned it over in his hands, it was as good as new again. This guy was good.

"Are you sure I cant pay you anything?" He asked Mack as he looked at what could have been the face he would've seen in the mirror.

"... Actually, yeah. You can do something." Mack said. "You can promise me that you'll enjoy that costume. Something that good deserves to be enjoyed, even if its not as good as the real thing."

Jacob looked up in a bit of shock. Sure he'd been thinking about maybe trying wearing it to another convention somewhere down the road but after what happened here how could the guy seriously suggest...

His train of thought ground to a halt when he saw the expression on Mack's face. He suddenly realized Mack wasn't in costume either.

"Yeah. Okay I can do that." He said, smiling and nodding as he reached his hand out to shake Mack's again. Mack smiled widely when he said that and took his hand.

"Pleasure doing business with you." Mack said.

{{Separator|k}}

Jacob muttered to himself as he dropped his bags on the bathroom floor. Still stuck in Xanadu unless the Sergeant he'd spoken too kept his word and talked to his superior about letting non afflicted people out.

He sighed and wondered who exactly was running the show anyway. He would've thought the military at first glance until he'd seen a Corporal with a machine gun, a guy wearing an FBI vest and someone in full biohazard gear all involved in a very loud argument over chain of command.

He ran some water and splashed it on his face. It usually helped calm him down and at this rate he figured he might be here a while. He would try to get out again in about an hour as he had seen some people who had been allowed to leave. He wasn't sure why some people were allowed to go and not others but he figured that might have something to do with the confusion amongst the authorities.

He could still hear weird noises elsewhere in the building and although a fair number of the attendee's had retreated there were still quite a few roaming the hallways.

Jacob had no idea what to do. Head back to his room? He hadn't checked out, course there was no hotel staff around for that to matter anyway. Not to mention a number of rooms with door's wide open or even off their hinges.

He grabbed his bag and had his hand almost on the bathroom doors handle when he heard something roar so loudly that the he felt it in his bones and the lights flickered off for a second.

Slowly backing away from the door, he figured he may as well stay in here for an hour or so. Just to be safe.

{{Separator|k}}

Ten minutes or so later he found himself growing pretty bored even despite his uneasiness about heading outside. He needed something to do, but he hadn't brought his cell phone laptop or anything with him on this trip. He'd just brought some clothes, some traveling supplies like towels larger than the ones you found in hotels and...

He glanced sidelong at his bags. Jacob almost didn't want to do it, but he'd made a promise to both himself and Mack. Not to mention that if he couldn't even bring himself to look at his costume he may as well just say the hell with the furry fandom altogether and there was no way he could bring himself to do that.

That thought made him feel a bit better. There were lots of people he knew on IRC and various other internet hangouts that also hadn't come to Xanadu. When he got home and got online doubtless there would be more than a few emails from friends wondering if he'd got caught up in the magic here. It would be hard to explain he'd gotten a flat and missed out on it but they'd be more than willing to comfort him for his loss as he would theirs. He smiled and unzipped the bag. Knowing you had friends to help always made the hurt easier to bear.

Taking the head out and examining it in the stale bathroom light he wondered when the last time was that he'd really looked at it. It still looked the same as it had when he'd handed it to Mack but the closer he examined it the more he found himself awestruck by it's craftsmanship. It was still the same mask, but for some reason he just couldn't help but feel a much deeper appreciation for it now.

He slid it on, getting a kind of euphoric kick out of the way the material graced his face as he did that he'd never felt before while costuming. Jacob just closed his eyes for a bit and really just felt what it was like to wear it, it was like being new to fursuiting again.

He opened his eyes and looked at the face in the mirror. Staring right back at him was the face he'd always wanted. His breath caught in his throat and a smile tugged at his muzzle as he just looked at himself, wondering how he could have brought himself to damage a mask like th...

He winced and glared at the bathroom door as he heard another roar like the one before, this one sounding angrier than the last. Upset that he couldn't even get a few minutes to just appreciate his costume to himself today he snatched his clothes bag off the floor and slung it over his shoulder, grabbing his costume bag and reaching up to take his mask off. He was just going to wait outside until he could get the hell away from here.

Jacob took one last appreciative look at the mask before taking it off. The ash white fur, the deep azure eyes, the ears folded back against his head to show his agitation at this mother fucking day. He sighed and pulled it off, holding it in his paws for a second before putting it back in his bag.

...

Wait, what?

Jacob stared down at his... paws? White furred with black leathery pads on the palm and tipped with claws. As he watched the fur slowly receded down his arms towards his hands, leaving pink flesh in its wake.

He accidentally laid his other hand on the mask in his bag and the progression stopped. He stared at the mask for a few seconds before putting it back on, watching this time as the fur spread down from his neck all over the rest of his body.

{{Separator|k}}

Mack sighed and considered trying to just pack everything the hell up and heading home. He wasn't sure what kind of trouble the authorities outside would give him but anything would be better than this.

"And then when my dad gets done suing you he's going after your stupid friend here!" The enraged cat girl screamed at him. Mack just figured she was more scared than anything. He'd sold a cat mask to her and each of her giggling teenage friends just before the change, but obviously she hadn't taken it as well as he friends.

"Lindsay, lets just go." Her friend begged her. But Lindsay batted the snow leopard morph's arm away.

"How am I going to get sued?" Fiona asked, sounding confused. Although a small bit of pity for the forlorn cat girl leaked through her tightly composed voice.

"You're an accomplice! You, you..." Lindsay sputtered, gesticulating at Fiona and trying to dredge the words out past her own self pity.

Mack tried to figure out what he could do to calm her down. She would probably take offense if he offered her her money back. But other than that Mack just couldn't think of anything to say.

She was just about to begin her tirade again when she and her friend looked up sharply at a spot behind Mack. He almost got turned around to see what it was when it jumped him and knocked him off his chair.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!!" The white furry thing that was pinning him in a bear hug repeated again and again. Mack just laid there for a second trying to figure out what the hell was gong on.

"Your welcome?" He replied.

"I wasn't sure how it happened because I'd tried the costume on before and it didn't do anything but then I looked at your business card again and it just made sense and I know you wouldn't take cash before but you dont have any choice this time!!" The Arctic fox morph shouted gleefully. "I owe you so much, your getting all the cash I have left and when I get back home I'm going on IRC and I know a LOT of people who are going to be wanting their own costume and I'm referring each and every one of them to you and..." The arctic wolf morph paused to breath and as he did so he seemed to think of something and jumped off of Mack, looking a couple different ways all at once. "Where's the nearest pay phone?! Or even a computer with internet, I gotta... I just gotta TELL people about this!"

Fiona pointed in the direction of the check in desk where several pay phone kiosks were located and the arctic fox took off like a shot. Lindsay's muzzle flashed between confusion, disgust and exhaustion all in a few seconds, after which she just walked off. Her snow leopard friend looked apologetic but didn't say anything as she turned around to follow her.

Mack sat up and looks inquiringly at Fiona. "Who?"

Fiona glanced over her shoulder at where the morph had run off too. "If I had to guess I would say Jacob."

He just stared blankly at her for a second as he tried to follow her train of thought. "Jacob? But that kid didn't get changed." He replied. Fiona shrugged and he thought about what the arctic wolf morph had said. He agreed with Fiona, there was a weird resemblance between that morph and the mask he'd repaired for Jacob but how did he get transformed then?

He pulled out his business card and looked at it, wondering what Jacob had been referring too. "Mack Corrinth. Costumer. Crafting you the body you've always wanted since nineteen ninety five."

A silence lingered between Mack and Fiona as they thought the implications of that over. "He... he thinks I can make costumes that can transform people?!" Mack said in bewilderment.

"It does make a bit of sense. I talked with some people who were changed and for some it seemed to make a difference in how they thought of themselves when they were changed." Fiona explained.

"So... Thats, no thats crazy. I mean how could I even find out if I could do..." His voice trailed off as Fiona held up the Anthro Giraffe he had been working on when he met Jacob, a mischievous grin on her muzzle. "Oh..."

'''The End'''

[[Category:Devin Hallsworth]]
[[Category:Xanadu]]
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Anthropomorphic]]
[[Category:Transgender]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fashionably Late}}
{{TF Type|Gender}}
{{TF Type|Animal}}
{{TF Degree|Anthro}}
{{TF Species|Wolf}}
{{TF Species|Fox}}

Fashionably Late

2009-02-15T07:19:22Z

Devin: trying out the semantic tags

{{Comment tag}}
{{universe|Xanadu}}
{{author's note|Hi, this is my first submission to shifti. This story is set in Bryan Derksen's Xanadu setting and will be posted to the Xanadu story archive as well.
Before that though I wanted to use it to test posting here and to hopefully get a couple comments on it from people other than the guys on the TSA Mailing list where it was originally submitted.

Feel free to comment and point out anything you like or dislike.

The Xanadu setting was created by and is the intellectual property of Bryan Derksen.}}

{{byline|Devin Hallsworth
|user=Devin}}

Jacob kicked the flat on his car. Frustrated but not letting it get to him. He was about another hour from Xanadu, this was going to take a bit of time but once he got the spare...

Jacob mentally kicked himself. He'd taken the spare out of the trunk to make room for his costume and bags. He hadn't even thought anything of it when he did, heck he'd never even had to change a tire in his life until right now.

He reached into his pants pocket for his cellphone. Everything was fine, he told himself. At worst he'd be a few hours late after he found a tow
service that could come out. He'd been looking forward to Xanadu, but more as a sightseer than anything else.

He didn't really have any friends he was meeting there, it was just an opportunity to test the costume he'd made before taking it to an anthro convention and maybe get some ideas from looking at what other people had done.

Xanadu was the BIG one. He really didn't care how his arctic fox costume stacked up against some of the stuff he'd see there, he was just looking for ways to better represent his avatar and what better place to do that than Xanadu.

Feeling better, his only worry now was how much the bill was going to be from the tow company...

{{Separator|k}}

Mack heaved the booth wall over to get at some of his costumes that lay scattered beneath it. He cursed as he saw some of them were going to need repairs.

"Well this is just lovely. Not only does someone take off with my cash bag in the chaos but some of these thousand dollar full body costumes are going to need stitching as well and its not like I can just repair them and sell them for full price with a clean conscience." He grumbled. Fiona gave him an out of character leer in response.

"At least you didn't come as a Victorian era Vixen anthro." She said, gingerly helping him pick up some of the costumes that lay scattered. Though she had to take it easy as she was wearing a corset under her dress they had found out she couldn't take off in public, she was just grateful she hadn't come in a bodice. That made Mack feel a bit guilty although he wondered if it was just something in Fiona's head that wouldn't let her...

"Well... Maybe I would have liked to come as something. I only didn't because I wanted to focus on the business while I was here." Mack replied, examining a Minbari head that he'd sculpted by hand just a month before the convention. He'd sold the other one he'd made a couple hours before. It made him wonder where that person was now. "I had that problem at the last Anthrocon I went too remember? I had a lot of fun with that coyote morph costume but I couldn't concentrate on running the booth."

"Hmph, I'm sure you would've just loved coming in that female anthro Girrafe costume you've been working on for the past year." She said bitterly. Mack imagined that if a proper lady was allowed to lose her cool and cuss people out in public Fred.. er... Fiona would be right now.

He considered what to say for a second. Part of him wanted to snap at Fred that no one had made him come to Xanadu dressed as an Victorian styled Vixen but considering he was the one who had designed and built the costume for him...

"Sorry.." He said, feeling a bit inadequate. What business did he have getting angry? He should be trying to be there for Fiona like she was trying to be for him by helping him salvage what was left of his booth.

"No, don't. Don't worry about it." She said with a sigh. "I know I shouldn't be acting this way. I just wish I had someone to help me through this." She said, sitting down on the shattered remnants of his table, careful about not getting her dress caught on anything. "I realize its greedy of me to think so but a part of me actually wishes you had come in costume, then maybe we could have helped each other with this." The sadness in her voice was much more muted than her words seemed to say, but Mack could tell just by looking at her that there were some of the psychological changes in her head that he'd seen in some of the other convention goers who had been struck.

Mack considered his words and realized that he could only really bring himself to say one thing. Fred had been his friend and by default Fiona was as well. "Fiona I'm sorry I didn't come in costume and now for more than just one reason. I want to be there to help you because your my friend and even if it meant being a lady so that I would be able to share this with you I would." He left unsaid that he couldn't. He hadn't come in costume and that seemed to be that. He felt guilty after saying it, sure it was one thing to say it but did it really mean anything when nothing could be done?

Fiona smiled, still looking a bit woeful but seeming reassured that at least her friend was there for her as much as he could be. "Thank you."

{{Separator|k}}

Jacob stumbled into the room he had reserved numbly. He dropped his bags on the bed and just looked around for a second, not really believing something so out of this world could happen in such a mundane place as a hotel.

Actually, he thought of that for a second. It was Xanadu it had happened at.

Easily the biggest gathering of costumers anywhere and it gets hit with something that changes everyone into what their costume is? The more Jacob thought of it the more deliberate it seemed to him. Not that it helped considering he couldn't even begin to guess who, why or most importantly how.

He walked over to the window when he heard the sound of car horns blaring from outside. His room wasn't that high, fifth floor. From here he had a pretty good view of the barricade about twenty soldiers were setting up on the street, blocking off traffic from the hotel. The army had arrived just a few minutes behind him, he'd been lucky to get in when he had.

He turned around slowly. His eyes going straight to the bag that held his costume. He walked over timidly, almost as if he expected it to jump out at him. Carefully he unzipped the bag and looked at the arctic fox head that stared back at him.

What am I doing? He asked himself. Something weird had gone down here and he had no Idea what would happen if he put that costume on, so why was he doing it? He slowly slid the head on, closing his eyes and waiting to see what would happen.

After a few moments of nothing he opened his eyes to see a very limited field of view of his hotel room. He could feel the material of the mask on his face but that was it. Maybe he needed to put the whole costume on, a part of him thought frantically.

A few minutes later he was fully clad in the costume from head to toe. He walked into the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror for a while. Watching in case it should start on him any second now...

Half an hour later he bit back a flood of tears as he tore the mask off and slammed it against the bathroom counter. He threw it out of the room without even looking and sat down on the toilet and shuddered. When he finally got control of himself he took the costume off and carefully packed it back into his bags. He was heading home.

He'd lived his whole life like this after all, nothing was going to stop him from continuing to do so, not even a missed opportunity like this. He looked around, wondering where the head was. He found it on the other side of the bed and couldn't fight back his grief anymore as he looked over the damage he'd done to the muzzle.

{{Separator|k}}

Mark had set up his sewing machine after attempting to leave and getting rebuffed by the army outside the convention center. Fiona and him had salvaged an intact desk from another stall whose user had likely abandoned the convention.

Luckily his sewing machine had survived the event intact. Some of the costumes he hand repaired but for the larger gashes and tears the sewing machine came in handy. He knew he wouldn't likely turn a profit selling them but if he just left them that meant losing all the money he had invested in making them as well and Mack wasn't rich.

Fiona seemed to have picked up a bit of sewing skill from her transformation as well. Mack had been a bit hesitant to let her help at first but she was handling a sewing needle more deftly than someone who'd never touched one before had any business being able to.

He wasn't sure how long he was going to be here, but as long as he was stuck he could at least get some work done to try and recoup his losses. Mack snorted as he thought that. Loss in profit, at the biggest costume convention around. His only gain from this convention was that Fiona it seemed couldn't wear anything but period clothing, which meant she was thinking about commissioning Mack for a wardrobe seeing as he'd not only done the vixen part of her costume but the Victorian style dress as well.

Even with that though he was looking at a severe hit to his budget for this year. What he really needed were some more commissions from new costumers but he doubted any of the transformees at the convention centre were interested...

He looked up when he saw someone walking across the debris towards the doors. His stall had been fairly close to the entrance to the costumers hall, something he'd thought would help rake in a little extra cash but instead had only gotten his booth trampled.

The kid didn't look that old, maybe mid-twenties at latest. He was carrying two bags with him and was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. He must not have gotten caught in costume when whatever that was happened, Mack thought. He almost started to think 'lucky' until he saw the expression on his face. It was a brave one but he had red eyes that gave away earlier grief.

The kid slowed down as he walked past and watched what Mack and Fiona were doing. Mack wasn't sure what to say, he doubted this was a potential costumer... in fact unless he missed his guess the kid probably already owned a costume. Still he felt like he aught to say something.

"Hi." Mack said casually.

The kid looked back at him and then looked back at the full helmet he'd been working on. "Hey."

Mack had decided to take a break from the other costumes for a moment to repair the damage to his anthro giraffe helmet. The leg stilts had escaped damage thank god but one of the horns on the helmet had been bent. Mack was almost ready to put the synthetic fur back on the head.

"Your a costumer?" The kid asked. Mack nodded, wondering if maybe he'd been off on his guess.

"Yeah, hold on a sec." Mack reached into his pocket and fished out a business card. "I'd like to be able to show you some of the stuff I have here but a fair bit of it got damaged by the stampede of people trying to get out. You can check my website for some good examples of what I do." He wondered if he was coming on too strong, but then again the kid had asked.

He looked at Mack's business card. "Mack Corrinth." The kid smiled and raised his hand, which Mack shook. "Jacob Faye. And uh, actually I was just wondering if you did repairs?" He put his bag down and unzipped it, pulling out the head of a costume.

"Let me see." Mack said as he took it from Jacob's hands. The muzzle was deformed, Mack felt along inside the head. It was a plastic mesh with some foam overtop. some of the stitching where the muzzle met the skull had torn which caused the muzzle to just droop to the side. It just was a matter of some new stitching and checking to make sure the foam wasn't out of place. "This ain't nothing. I can do this for you right now."

Jacob smiled when he heard that. "Thank you. How much?"

Mack shook his head and waved the question away. "No charge. Its good make, It deserves good treatment." He fetched his stuff and got to work before Jacob had a chance to say anything.

Jacob looked like he wanted to protest for a second, but then he just smiled and sat down to wait. "Yeah... yeah it is. I shouldn't have..." Jacob started to say then shook his head. "Heh, I'm heading to a couple furry conventions later this year. Thanks for repairing it. Are you sure I cant pay you something? I came with a couple hundred dollars spending money."

Mack just shook his head.

{{Separator|k}}

Jacob almost thought that maybe he should try to press the guy into accepting payment. It was obvious as he sat and waited how badly the guys business had been hit by the event. His booth was trash and a lot of the elaborate looking costumes looked in need of repair.

He smiled back at the vixen anthro that was hand stitching another costume while Mack worked on the muzzle that Jacob had damaged in that fit of anger. Jacob realized he wasn't really that bad off now that he thought of it. When he went home earlier that day he wouldn't have to worry about what his parents would think, who didn't even know that he was a furry. Wouldn't have to worry about his job, going out in public looking like...

"There we are, told you it was no problem." Mack said, suddenly handing Jacobs mask back to him. Jacob blinked in confusion, thinking that it'd only been at most two minutes. He took the mask and turned it over in his hands, it was as good as new again. This guy was good.

"Are you sure I cant pay you anything?" He asked Mack as he looked at what could have been the face he would've seen in the mirror.

"... Actually, yeah. You can do something." Mack said. "You can promise me that you'll enjoy that costume. Something that good deserves to be enjoyed, even if its not as good as the real thing."

Jacob looked up in a bit of shock. Sure he'd been thinking about maybe trying wearing it to another convention somewhere down the road but after what happened here how could the guy seriously suggest...

His train of thought ground to a halt when he saw the expression on Mack's face. He suddenly realized Mack wasn't in costume either.

"Yeah. Okay I can do that." He said, smiling and nodding as he reached his hand out to shake Mack's again. Mack smiled widely when he said that and took his hand.

"Pleasure doing business with you." Mack said.

{{Separator|k}}

Jacob muttered to himself as he dropped his bags on the bathroom floor. Still stuck in Xanadu unless the Sergeant he'd spoken too kept his word and talked to his superior about letting non afflicted people out.

He sighed and wondered who exactly was running the show anyway. He would've thought the military at first glance until he'd seen a Corporal with a machine gun, a guy wearing an FBI vest and someone in full biohazard gear all involved in a very loud argument over chain of command.

He ran some water and splashed it on his face. It usually helped calm him down and at this rate he figured he might be here a while. He would try to get out again in about an hour as he had seen some people who had been allowed to leave. He wasn't sure why some people were allowed to go and not others but he figured that might have something to do with the confusion amongst the authorities.

He could still hear weird noises elsewhere in the building and although a fair number of the attendee's had retreated there were still quite a few roaming the hallways.

Jacob had no idea what to do. Head back to his room? He hadn't checked out, course there was no hotel staff around for that to matter anyway. Not to mention a number of rooms with door's wide open or even off their hinges.

He grabbed his bag and had his hand almost on the bathroom doors handle when he heard something roar so loudly that the he felt it in his bones and the lights flickered off for a second.

Slowly backing away from the door, he figured he may as well stay in here for an hour or so. Just to be safe.

{{Separator|k}}

Ten minutes or so later he found himself growing pretty bored even despite his uneasiness about heading outside. He needed something to do, but he hadn't brought his cell phone laptop or anything with him on this trip. He'd just brought some clothes, some traveling supplies like towels larger than the ones you found in hotels and...

He glanced sidelong at his bags. Jacob almost didn't want to do it, but he'd made a promise to both himself and Mack. Not to mention that if he couldn't even bring himself to look at his costume he may as well just say the hell with the furry fandom altogether and there was no way he could bring himself to do that.

That thought made him feel a bit better. There were lots of people he knew on IRC and various other internet hangouts that also hadn't come to Xanadu. When he got home and got online doubtless there would be more than a few emails from friends wondering if he'd got caught up in the magic here. It would be hard to explain he'd gotten a flat and missed out on it but they'd be more than willing to comfort him for his loss as he would theirs. He smiled and unzipped the bag. Knowing you had friends to help always made the hurt easier to bear.

Taking the head out and examining it in the stale bathroom light he wondered when the last time was that he'd really looked at it. It still looked the same as it had when he'd handed it to Mack but the closer he examined it the more he found himself awestruck by it's craftsmanship. It was still the same mask, but for some reason he just couldn't help but feel a much deeper appreciation for it now.

He slid it on, getting a kind of euphoric kick out of the way the material graced his face as he did that he'd never felt before while costuming. Jacob just closed his eyes for a bit and really just felt what it was like to wear it, it was like being new to fursuiting again.

He opened his eyes and looked at the face in the mirror. Staring right back at him was the face he'd always wanted. His breath caught in his throat and a smile tugged at his muzzle as he just looked at himself, wondering how he could have brought himself to damage a mask like th...

He winced and glared at the bathroom door as he heard another roar like the one before, this one sounding angrier than the last. Upset that he couldn't even get a few minutes to just appreciate his costume to himself today he snatched his clothes bag off the floor and slung it over his shoulder, grabbing his costume bag and reaching up to take his mask off. He was just going to wait outside until he could get the hell away from here.

Jacob took one last appreciative look at the mask before taking it off. The ash white fur, the deep azure eyes, the ears folded back against his head to show his agitation at this mother fucking day. He sighed and pulled it off, holding it in his paws for a second before putting it back in his bag.

...

Wait, what?

Jacob stared down at his... paws? White furred with black leathery pads on the palm and tipped with claws. As he watched the fur slowly receded down his arms towards his hands, leaving pink flesh in its wake.

He accidentally laid his other hand on the mask in his bag and the progression stopped. He stared at the mask for a few seconds before putting it back on, watching this time as the fur spread down from his neck all over the rest of his body.

{{Separator|k}}

Mack sighed and considered trying to just pack everything the hell up and heading home. He wasn't sure what kind of trouble the authorities outside would give him but anything would be better than this.

"And then when my dad gets done suing you he's going after your stupid friend here!" The enraged cat girl screamed at him. Mack just figured she was more scared than anything. He'd sold a cat mask to her and each of her giggling teenage friends just before the change, but obviously she hadn't taken it as well as he friends.

"Lindsay, lets just go." Her friend begged her. But Lindsay batted the snow leopard morph's arm away.

"How am I going to get sued?" Fiona asked, sounding confused. Although a small bit of pity for the forlorn cat girl leaked through her tightly composed voice.

"You're an accomplice! You, you..." Lindsay sputtered, gesticulating at Fiona and trying to dredge the words out past her own self pity.

Mack tried to figure out what he could do to calm her down. She would probably take offense if he offered her her money back. But other than that Mack just couldn't think of anything to say.

She was just about to begin her tirade again when she and her friend looked up sharply at a spot behind Mack. He almost got turned around to see what it was when it jumped him and knocked him off his chair.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!!" The white furry thing that was pinning him in a bear hug repeated again and again. Mack just laid there for a second trying to figure out what the hell was gong on.

"Your welcome?" He replied.

"I wasn't sure how it happened because I'd tried the costume on before and it didn't do anything but then I looked at your business card again and it just made sense and I know you wouldn't take cash before but you dont have any choice this time!!" The Arctic fox morph shouted gleefully. "I owe you so much, your getting all the cash I have left and when I get back home I'm going on IRC and I know a LOT of people who are going to be wanting their own costume and I'm referring each and every one of them to you and..." The arctic wolf morph paused to breath and as he did so he seemed to think of something and jumped off of Mack, looking a couple different ways all at once. "Where's the nearest pay phone?! Or even a computer with internet, I gotta... I just gotta TELL people about this!"

Fiona pointed in the direction of the check in desk where several pay phone kiosks were located and the arctic fox took off like a shot. Lindsay's muzzle flashed between confusion, disgust and exhaustion all in a few seconds, after which she just walked off. Her snow leopard friend looked apologetic but didn't say anything as she turned around to follow her.

Mack sat up and looks inquiringly at Fiona. "Who?"

Fiona glanced over her shoulder at where the morph had run off too. "If I had to guess I would say Jacob."

He just stared blankly at her for a second as he tried to follow her train of thought. "Jacob? But that kid didn't get changed." He replied. Fiona shrugged and he thought about what the arctic wolf morph had said. He agreed with Fiona, there was a weird resemblance between that morph and the mask he'd repaired for Jacob but how did he get transformed then?

He pulled out his business card and looked at it, wondering what Jacob had been referring too. "Mack Corrinth. Costumer. Crafting you the body you've always wanted since nineteen ninety five."

A silence lingered between Mack and Fiona as they thought the implications of that over. "He... he thinks I can make costumes that can transform people?!" Mack said in bewilderment.

"It does make a bit of sense. I talked with some people who were changed and for some it seemed to make a difference in how they thought of themselves when they were changed." Fiona explained.

"So... Thats, no thats crazy. I mean how could I even find out if I could do..." His voice trailed off as Fiona held up the Anthro Giraffe he had been working on when he met Jacob, a mischievous grin on her muzzle. "Oh..."

'''The End'''

[[Category:Devin Hallsworth]]
[[Category:Xanadu]]
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Anthropomorphic]]
[[Category:Transgender]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fashionably Late}}
{{TF Type|Gender}}
{{TF Type|Animal}}
{{TF Type|Mental}}
{{TF Degree|Anthro}}
{{TF Species|Wolf}}
{{TF Species|Fox}}

Main Page

2008-11-20T01:36:27Z

Devin: Failed experiment, might revive in future if there is a demand for it

'''Shifti''' is a wiki devoted to fiction involving shapeshifting of every variety - animal, anthropomorphic, transgender, age regression, inanimate, you name it. Here people can post stories, reviews, link collections, references, and all manner of other resources.

'''If you wish to post a story please visit [[Help:Posting stories]] for more information.''' The "Upload File" link is not intended for text.

Site news can be accessed via the '''[[Current_events|Current Events]]''' page.

If you're interested in helping to keep Shifti operating, then check out the [[Shifti:Site support|Donations]] page. We are currently accepting all forms of monetary support available. In that vein we are planning to publish an anthology of stories that can be found on Shifti. Details can be found on the [[Best of Shifti]] page. If the book works out well we may publish a new version each year.

{| style="width:100%;"
|-
| style="width:50%;" valign="top"|
==Hosted story collections==

*[[:Category:Story|All stories on the site]]
*[[:Category:Author|All authors' userpages]]
*[[:Category:Poem|All poetry on the site]]
*[[Bryan's picks]] - A personal favorites collection sorted by several criteria
*[[ShadowWolfs Pack|ShadowWolf's Pack]] - following [[User:Bryan|Bryan's]] example and posting a personal favorites list
*[[Devins Faves]] - Some personal favourites from the TSA and Shifti
*[[Catprog's Favorites]] - Some favorites of [[User:Catprog|Catprog]]
==Shifti Fundraising Projects==
*[[Best of Shifti]] - an Anthology of what we feel are the best stories on Shifti

<randompages count="5"><h2>Five random stories</h2></randompages>

| style="width:50%;" valign="top" |
==External link collections and reviews==
*[[Book Reviews]]
*[[Story archives]]
*[[Art archives]]
*[[Web comics]]
*[[Movies]]
*[[Miscellaneous links]]

==Discussion fora==
*[http://lists.integral.org/listinfo/tsa-talk TSA-Talk] mailing list
*[http://lapinia.org/tfnet/ TFNet] IRC network (particularly the [http://lapinia.org/tsa_list/ #tsa_list] and #transformations channels)

==Events==
*[[TSA-Bash]]. A yearly get together for TSA-Talk and other transformation enthusiasts. Since 1998.

==Writer's School==
'''[[Writer's School]]'''. Interested in picking up the keyboard yourself? Maybe you find yourself staring at the blank page, totally blocked? Here is a collection of essays by various authors. Useful for beginners and seasoned writers alike.

'''[[The Muse Files]]'''. Having problems with inspiration? Look for ideas and inspiration here. Have ideas of your own that aren't working out? Put them here - someone else might be inspired by it.
|}
__NOTOC__ __NOEDITSECTION__

User talk:Rabbit

2008-10-03T04:25:35Z

Devin: User talk:Rabbit moved to User talk:Phil Geusz: user requested

#REDIRECT [[User talk:Phil Geusz]]

User talk:Phil Geusz

2008-10-03T04:25:35Z

Devin: User talk:Rabbit moved to User talk:Phil Geusz: user requested

==Template:My stories==

Hi, just thought I should drop a note here since I imagine most authors won't be regularly checking [[Help:Templates]] for updates. I've finally added a template that I should have created long ago, a tag to put on userpages to facilitate linking to your personal story category; [[Template:My stories]]. If you want (it's entirely optional), just stick this code at the top of your userpage to create a standardized little box with a direct link in it: <nowiki>{{my stories|category=Phil Geusz|name=Rabbit}}</nowiki>. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 22:38, 18 January 2008 (EST)

User:Rabbit

2008-10-03T04:25:34Z

Devin: User:Rabbit moved to User:Phil Geusz: user requested

#REDIRECT [[User:Phil Geusz]]

User:Phil Geusz

2008-10-03T04:25:34Z

Devin: User:Rabbit moved to User:Phil Geusz: user requested

{{my stories
|category=Phil Geusz
|name=Rabbit}}
Hi!

I write all kinds of stuff, mostly about rabbits. Much of my work is archived elsewhere, and I've sold a few things. Feedback is always greatly prized. Thanks!

* [[User:Rabbit/The Crapper|The Crapper]]
* [[User:Rabbit/Public Domain|Public Domain]]
* [[User:Rabbit/Who Shall Mourn the Dandelions?|Who Shall Mourn the Dandelions?]]

[[Category:Author]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rabbit}}

User talk:MarkDrake

2008-10-03T01:34:37Z

Devin: sig

Welcome to Shifti. Enjoy your stay in the madhouse. [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 21:15, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

A Jedi eh? You might be interested in the Xanadu story setting then if you haven't already heard of it. http://shifti.org/Category:Xanadu , its basically a setting revolving around a costume convention where everyone turned into what they had dressed up as. Lots of stories about stormtroopers and Jedi and all that fun stuff. :)

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 21:34, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

User talk:MarkDrake

2008-10-03T01:34:13Z

Devin:

Devins Faves

2008-10-03T00:03:18Z

Devin: spelling fix

Howdy. This here is my own version of Bryan and SW's favourite stories list but with a slightly different twist. See this one here includes favourite storys from both shifti and its direct predecessor the Transformation Story Archive.

Some of you may note some of the stories that appear on shifti also appear on the TSA. This is because some of these stories were written anywhere from five to ten years ago and in that time the author has likely made some edits that they felt necessary for that story, thus I will only link to the version on shifti as this is the one the author most likely wants people to read.

I should make one thing clear, there are only two prerequisites for a story to appear on this list.

# I have to have read it.
# I have to have read it and found it particularly enjoyable.

__TOC__

==Disclaimer==

There are no other criteria involved in the choosing of this list. Which means that I do not filter out stories of poor grammatical quality as I was lucky to have barely passed high school and would only feel hypocritical if I were to do so. That said though If I cant comprehend what is being written the story is not likely to pass number 2 is it?

It also means that objectionable material such as sex and violence are '''not''' filtered. Why? This is because I am hardly the best judge of what could be considered objectionable.

For example gore will almost never even cause me to raise an eyebrow. Why? To put it simply I grew up on a farm and have 'personally' bottle fed baby calves,lambs,one motherless fawn we found wandering around one year and a couple young goats or kids as they're called. I have also 'personally' shot dead all of the above mentioned species and more for the purpose of putting food in the basement freezer for the winter. This stuff just doesn't irk me the same way it does some people.

I would like to point out that '''mindless''' sex and violence turn me off just as much as anyone else so there is at least that small form of content filtering, but that is all you will find in this list. If you read past this brief blurb and encounter what you consider to be objectionable material you have been forewarned and if you skip over this disclaimer and go straight for the storys its your own damn fault. ;)

All that said though I would like to say that each of these stories below passed my above mentioned number 2 rule.

==TSA Stories==

{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/alwaysreadthelabel.html Always Read the Label ]
|author=Jack deMule
|blurb=Horse Manna, reformulated to give your horse a healthier body! Warning: Not for human consumption.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/beastdance.html Beast Dance]
|author=Destrier
|blurb=An African village allows a man and his horse to participate in a centurys old ritual.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/betatest.html Beta Test]
|author=Destrier
|blurb=This photo morphing software is 'Really' powerful.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/birthdaywish.html Birthday Wish]
|author=Jack deMule
|blurb=A man learns the importance of being there for his child.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/coldjudgement.html Cold Judgment]
|author=[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]
|blurb=A pair of civil war Raiders face judgment at the hands of mysterious old woman.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/colt.html Colt]
|author=Jack deMule
|blurb=An old farmer is forced to put down a mare's colt.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/island.html Island]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=A man winds up shipwrecked on a very odd island.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/raindance.html Rain Dance]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=A man investigates a farm that is abandoned save for the horses still living there.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/transmutationtranscontinen.html Transmutation Transcontinental]
|author=[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]
|blurb=To win a race for shapeshifters an old competitor must find a hole in the rules.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/myth/ayshea.html Ayshea]
|author=Wolphin
|blurb= A fishing trip, a woman, and a happy ending. What more can you ask?
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/myth/environmentalprotection.html Environmental Protection]
|author=Equestrian
|blurb=A man takes a job with the EPA and learns who they really are.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/myth/fraternity.html Fraternity]
|author=Equestrian
|blurb=Initiation usually involves things like cross-dressing, petty thievery, and sucklike. Usually.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/furry/anubis.html Anubis]
|author=[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]
|blurb= 1821. A sailing ship at sea. Alone. Isolated. Helpless before events beyond mortal comprehension.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/furry/hollywoodfever.html Hollywood Fever]
|author=Nanomage
|blurb=A writer is like god. But what happens to the characters when god cant make up his mind?
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/furry/muckingabout.html Mucking About]
|author=Wanderer
|blurb=Wandering onto a Muck, a teen gets all mucked up
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/tg/attack.html Attack]
|author=Keith Morrison
|blurb=Attack of the Big-Buxomed Bikinied Bimbos is the full title. Honestly.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/tg/attackpart2.html Attack, Part 2]
|author=Keith Morrison
|blurb=Yep, there was a part two.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/tg/fatlady.html Fat Lady]
|author=Anonymous
|blurb=It's rude to stare, no matter how large a woman is.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/tg/genderbendersanonymous.html Gender Benders Anonymous]
|author=Eddie Glover
|blurb=Like an AA meeting but with a lot more estrogen.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/tg/leaf.html The Leaf]
|author=Liz M
|blurb=A women uses the wishes granted by a golden leaf to get ahead in the corporate world. But the way in which it grants her wishes isn't quite what she or her son expected.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/tg/regenesisindistinguish.html Regenesis, Inc.]
|author=Bill Hart
|blurb=Regenesis Inc. Indistinguishable from magic.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/tg/schoolofchanges.html School of Changes]
|author=Unknown
|blurb=You'll wish you had gone to this school.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/dailygrind.html Daily Grind]
|author=Tal Greywolf
|blurb=Margaret needs a job and an exclusive night club is hiring dancers. However it doesn't turn out to be quite what she expected.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/fleeinggods.html Fleeing Gods]
|author=M.A. Mohanraj
|blurb=Zeus is back but he really would have been much safer back on Olympus.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/fracturedtale.html All That Glitters Does Not Have A High Refractory Index Or: How to fracture a fairy tale]
|author=Anonymous
|blurb=Not the same snow white and the seven dwarfs you are likely familiar with.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/inalienwaters.html In Alien Waters]
|author=Darcy Dallas
|blurb=A man is frozen alive and revived many years in the future.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/specialdelivery.html Special Delivery]
|author=Bob Stein
|blurb=Vinnie trys a dating service at the suggestion of a freind but winds up getting a chance for much more than just a girlfriend.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/transformationvignettes.html Transformation Vignettes]
|author=Mark Gooley
|blurb=A collection of very short transformation oriented storys.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/velveetarabbit.html Velveeta Rabbit]
|author=Jason the Skunk
|blurb=An account of the life of a Velveeta Rabbit.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/whohuntsthehunter.html Who Hunts the Hunter?]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Brian Eirik Coe]]
|blurb=After losing a serial murderer in a crash the cop that had been pursuing him becomes his prey.
}}

===Best of the TSA stories===

The following stories are the best of the best. In my humble opinion as far as what the TSA has to offer.

{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/myth/titanic.html Titanic]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]]
|blurb=The Tsa version is the original but it is also up on shifti at http://shifti.org/Titanic To put it simply the Titanic and the idea of reincarnation is what drives this story.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/myth/unicornclub.html Unicorn Club]
|author=Andy Hollis
|blurb=The person into a unicorn story is not a rare one, but this one sticks out in my mind whenever I think of the idea.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/circesfunhouse.html Circe's Funhouse]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=This is one carnival you don't want to sneak into after hours. Or maybe you do.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/furry/costumevixengolden.html Costume: Vixen, Golden]
|author=Kim Liu
|blurb=Advantechs most popular model. The Vixen, Golden. (CO-V101(G1)) full tactile and sensory feedback Costume.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/furry/foxkid.html The Fox Kid]
|author=Rodford Edmistion
|blurb=This story is only the iceberg tip of a series about a young teen learning of his fey heritage. If you like what you read here check out the rest of it on stickmakers site http://www.dcr.net/~stickmak/Transformation/FOXKID/index.htmsite.
}}

==Shifti Stories==

This section here is for storys on Shifti.

{{DF row
|title=[[501st]]
|author=[[User:Joysweeper|Joysweeper]]
|blurb= This one is about a legion of storm trooper cosplayers who were present at Xanadu
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Actaeon Reborn]]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]]
|blurb=The classic tale of Actaeon told in the context of a modern day world where gods and magic live side by side with normal people.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:JonBuck/A_Kind_of_Paradise|A Kind of Paradise]]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]]
|blurb=The kicker story for a setting based around the idea that people are changing forms but only other changed can see them.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Cubist/A_Good_Run_of_Luck|A Good Run of Luck]]
|author=[[User:Cubist|Cubist]]
|blurb=A story about a cheetah morph in the blind pig setting with a unique case of scabs.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Eirik/At the End of Time|At the End of Time]]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Eirik]]
|blurb=Something is making all the people around the world disappear and one person has figured out what it is.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Posti/Circe com|Circe.com]]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=Circe is an industrious person these days. She even has a website.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Fish/CYOE| CYOE]]
|author=[[User:Fish|Fish]]
|blurb=Choose your own ending, a project that Fish is working on intermittently that centers around a large number of college age characters and their experiences with a business selling Virtual Reality experiences.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Doe's Hoof]]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]]
|blurb=Camping out in a National Enchanted Forest is not something to take lightly.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Eirik/Change Lady|Change Lady]]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Eirik]]
|blurb=Even other realitys have casinos and one person gets to experience a whole range of them in one night.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Michael Bard/The Bloodstone's Gift|The Bloodstone's Gift]]
|author=[[User:Michael Bard|Michael Bard]]
|blurb=This is a Warhammer 40,000 fanfic that stands up there with what I have read of the warhammer 40,000 novels.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Posti/Baylors Rein|Baylors Rein]]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=This prince is not fit to rule. What will it take to make him realize that?
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Dragon Dancer]]
|author=[[User:Joysweeper|Joysweeper]]
|blurb=A Xanadu story of four people who shared one costume.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Eirik/Care and Feeding|Care and Feeding]]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Eirik]]
|blurb=If you are going to feed the animals at least give them the good stuff.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Echoes]]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]]
|blurb=This is a sequel of sorts to Jons Titanic. If you liked Titanic you cant go wrong with this story.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Escape]]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]]
|blurb=Aliens invade and round up all the humans into camps to control them. Their only mistake is in not paying attention to the animal population.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Michael_Bard/Five_Hours%2C_Thirty-two_Minutes|Five Hours Thirty Two Minutes]]
|author=[[User:Michael Bard|Michael Bard]]
|blurb=One costumer at Xanadu made the mistake of going as a character that couldn't breath the same air as humans.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Forest Life]]
|author=[[User:Bryan|Bryan]]
|blurb=This guy didn't just get off the elevator on the wrong floor, he got off on a completly different world.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Eirik/A Gentle Touch|A Gentle Touch]]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Eirik]]
|blurb=It takes a gentle touch to tame wild horses.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Halloween Cinderella]]
|author=[[User:Bryan|Bryan]]
|blurb=A Cinderella story with a Halloween twist. (What? What do you want from me? A blurb that covers something besides what the title already perfectly conveys about the story? Just read it already. XD)
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Slyfordtrabbit/Eternal_Glory|Eternal Glory]]
|author=[[User:Slyfordtrabbit|Slyford T. Rabbit]]
|blurb=The care bears are out to get you.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Mr.Peaches/Have You Heard About the TFORs?|Have You Heard About the TFORs?]]
|author=[[User:Mr.Peaches|Mr. Peaches]]
|blurb=A very well detailed story of a college students experience with TFORS.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Eirik/Historical Revisionism|Historical Revisionism]]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Eirik]]
|blurb=Changing the dominant species of a planet should have dramatic consequences to history.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:MatthiasRat/A Long-Forgotten Madness|A Long-Forgotten Madness]]
|author=[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]]
|blurb=Twenty years later William has to return to Montana because of his fathers death, but despite how much he might wish it he wont be able to leave until confronting the tragedy that made him leave to begin with.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:ShadowWolf/Little Things|Little Things]]
|author=[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]]
|blurb=An interview style opening story for the Pig and Whistle setting.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Posti/Midsummer|Midsummer]]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=Be careful about ticking off your boss.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Private Thoughts]]
|author=[[user:Bryan|Bryan]]
|blurb=If you had to live a life like what a goldfish in a tank lives, it would likely look a lot like this.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Rachel's Collar]]
|author=[[User:Bryan|Bryan]]
|blurb=Rachel's master is a mage, but what is Rachel herself?
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Eirik/Reality Bites|Reality Bites]]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Eirik]]
|blurb=Nanotech is not for pranks.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Posti/Reindeer games|Reindeer Games]]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=Santa is hiring.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Cubist/Second_Heat|Second Heat]]
|author=[[User:Cubist|Cubist]]
|blurb=According to the Cliff Notes for this story: The Blind Pig Gin Mill acquires a new regular. A puzzle is solved, and the solution creates more puzzles. A lost soul begins finding its way back.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Posti/Simple life|Simple life]]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=All Martin the new Tax assessor wants is a comfortable place to sleep and enough to eat. With some basic work to pay for it.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Michael Bard/Somebody's Watching|Sombody's Watching]]
|author=[[User:Michael Bard|Michael Bard]]
|blurb=The story must go on! No matter how many lives it claims.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Eirik/Swift_of_Foot_and_Hoof|Swift of Hoof and Foot]]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Eirik]]
|blurb=Always memorize the counter spell.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Posti/Totally Pucked|Totally Pucked]]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=Don't mess with the Fae. Seriously, don't.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Taint of Chaos]]
|author=[[User:Bryan|Bryan]]
|blurb=Chaotic magic acts in very strange ways.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:JonBuck/Tall_Tales|Tall Tales]]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|JonBuck]]
|blurb=Noone can see that you've changed, except the other people like you.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Slyfordtrabbit/Tyrst_Tail|Tyrst Tail]]
|author=[[User:Slyfordtrabbit|Slyford T. Rabbit]]
|blurb=I'm not usually a fan of poetry, this I couldn't help but like though.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Unexpected Shore]]
|author=[[User:Bryan|Bryan]]
|blurb=For an alien probe, just communicating with humanity poses an interesting challenge.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Michael Bard/Whom God Destroys|Whom God Destroys]]
|author=[[User:Michael Bard|Michael Bard]]
|blurb=Old Gods should beware as things change...
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Window of Opportunity]]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|JonBuck]]
|blurb=Being female was the /least/ of her problems!
}}

===New Faves===

An area for stories that I have either just read or found a new interest in. Stories will stay here for roughly a month before getting added to the above list.

{{DF row
|title=[[User:Michael_Bard/Tale_of_a_Tail|Tale of a Tail]] Added Feb 08
|author=[[User:Michael Bard|Michael Bard]]
|blurb=What good is a tail.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:MatthiasRat/MadeAlone|Made Alone]] Added Feb 08
|author=[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]]
|blurb=Changing can be bad enough, being alone in changing can be worse.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:MatthiasRat/Bathing_Alone|Bathing Alone]] Added Feb 08
|author=[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]]
|blurb=Sequel to Made Alone.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[At_the_Ranch_Pt_1/9|At the Ranch]] Added Feb 08
|author=[[User:FelixSagittarius|Felix Sagittarius]]
|blurb=Take a trip to a VERY different Ranch!
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Naturalization]] Added Feb 08
|author=[[User:Bryan|Bryan]]
|blurb=High Energy Particle Physics and Satyrs: What do they have in common?
}}

Note that I said 'roughly' a month before being updated. >.>

Haven't been reading as much as I would like recently. Thus there will be a lack of updates to this page for the near future.

Talk:Best of Shifti

2008-10-01T21:51:26Z

Devin:

No, no, NO! Not that one! ANYTHING but that one!

Yea, sure, you can use it.

--Michael Bard, Oct 1/2008

Yes. I give full permission to use my story 'Gaia's Rain' in your Anthology.

Felix Sagittarius

Aka James Wolf
10/1 2008

Thank you both! ^^

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 17:51, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

Talk:Best of Shifti

2008-10-01T21:49:56Z

Devin: Reverted edits by Devin (Talk); changed back to last version by 67.48.23.46

Talk:Best of Shifti

2008-10-01T21:49:38Z

Devin: Reverted edits by 67.48.23.46 (Talk); changed back to last version by 76.66.19.25

No, no, NO! Not that one! ANYTHING but that one!

Yea, sure, you can use it.

--Michael Bard, Oct 1/2008

Talk:501st

2008-09-18T00:51:57Z

Devin: linkage

This is a good one, I really like the idea you presented in this story with the vaders and how bad they have it. Made me think of a villain I'm going to have to write a xanadu story for here eventually.

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/features/developers/production-studio-4/resident-evil-3-nemesis-art.jpg

Keep up the awesome work. :)

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 03:34, 29 December 2007 (EST)

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it. I used the main concept from your story "Fashionably Late" - namely, a reversed clothing effect - for my story; I hope you don't mind. Ooh, that guy doesn't even have "cool-looking" in his favor... Good luck, and thanks for putting my story on the Faves list. -[[Joysweeper|Joysweeper]] 29 December 2007

http://gizmodo.com/5051226/caption-contest-vader-love

Thank mintzbuck for finding this one.

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 20:51, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

User:Michael Bard/Tales of Euper Investigations

2008-09-03T07:16:29Z

Devin:

{{title|name=Tales of Euper Investigations|author=Michael Bard|user=Michael Bard}}
{{WIP}}
{{float tag|text={{add|'''Author's Notes: New additions will start with a few words of green text.}} Keep in mind that significant revisions are possible, and sometimes necessary. The entire text is therefore in flux.'''}}{{Comment tag}}[[Category:Metamor Keep]]
[[Category:Michael Bard]]
[[Category:Story]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:CSI: Euper}}
[[Category:Anthropomorphic]][[Category:Cervine]][[Category:Mythical]]
'''October, 707 CR'''

The dagger stared at him. Mocking. Oblivious to the faint drumming of rain against the stone tower wall.

He threw down the scroll on the battered desk and flopped his goat form onto the tied-together wooden square which creaked alarmingly under the pressure. ''Join the town watch'' they said. ''March through the town to cheering crowds and thrown rose petals'' they said.

Instead there were crappy hours, rotten fruit, and the endless mud under his cloven hoof.

And when he'd been promoted to head of Euper Investigations, it was all ''now you can relax and enjoy life''.

Until the murders started.

Oh, there were always murders. Sometimes action was even taken. A body washing up under the docks once a week was usual. Same with a half rotted corpse in an alley. He'd have just left them, except for the standing order for cremation to make sure necromancy didn't raise them.

He stared at the dagger.

But now-- Entire families. Last night five in two groups. All with their throats slit. Entry forced by a pro, the murders quick and thorough. Evidence of a careful search. Nothing taken and the door or window closed as the bastard left.

And then. Two days ago, the dagger, edged in dried blood, left on the floor.

Higher ups wanted the murders solved. Or, in the real meaning, stopped. Else heads -- in this case his -- would roll.

He would have sworn the dagger was mocking him.

He glared back, scowling at its leather-bound hilt. His eyes slid down its length to the bound book it was thrust into: ''CSI: Metamor''.

Ha!

He'd read the first one. Or tired to. A building full of highly trained mages and clerics. Careful records. Undisturbed crime scenes. Elaborate illusions recreating complex murders in agonizing detail. The criminal always being caught--

Ha!

He had one guy directly under him, well former guy now girl, this desk, a room it could barely fit in. Eli! He'd sent to the keep ''two days ago'' for a mage or somebody to do a reading on the presumed murder weapon.

And this was all in addition to his dirties running the watch.

And, so far, nothing.

He turned his hatred to the latest episode of ''CSI: Metamor -- the Dollhouse Murderer''. The printing house up by the keep kept sending him complementary copies. Eli damn--

There was a knock on the door. Jim yanked his eyes away from the book, from ''the dagger'' as the knock repeated, his ears flipping to catch the sound.

"The door's open, Chrispher." The shy knock had told him it was his arrant female assistant knocking. She'd been male before the curse, and now she refused to touch a weapon.

Now she was his secretary.

She pushed the door open, her cute little girl face blasted with a scowl. "That mage is here."

Finally! "Send him in!"

"Okay--"

Her tone of voice struck him as odder than usual, and it didn't take long for the reason to make itself apparent. The ''mage'' who came in could barely be seen behind his desk, and Jim didn't get the full impact of the wizard's appearance until said wizard hopped or climbed onto the desk.

The magic worker looked like a fox, but was dark gray in colour and wrapped in a soaked silver-threaded black wool cloak. His eyes glittered, and glared, hating the entire world. Jim almost laughed, the fox looked young enough that he had to still be nursing, except he noticed the Patrol ''Captain'' badge.

Jim saluted. "Sir."

A big blob of muck slipped from the mage's cloak onto the edge of the desk, and then fell off, splatting on the floor.

"Blasted rain! When I find out who's brain-deceased idea it was to send a fire mage--" The fox shook himself, the weight of the cloak almost dragging him backwards off the desk. "I'm here. What do you want?"

Jim blinked, tail pulled up against his spine. "Umm-- sir-- That dagger," he pointed. "I need a reading. Who owns it? What did they do with it?"

The fox blinked back. "Reading? I'm a fire mage, not a blasted CSI specialist!" The wizard's eyes sparked as water dripped onto the floor.

The damn fox probably ''loved'' those stories. "I'm sorry. I did specify--"

"Whatever--" The mage said, rolling his eyes. "That dagger?"

Jim nodded. "We've tried to minimize contact with it as much as possible. The blood on it was there when we found it."

"You ''think''?" the fox said dryly. He produced a long piece of chalk and tapped it against the underside of his muzzle. He circled the murder weapon once, toeclaws digging into Jim's late grandmother's desk. It was his only memento of her! The goat cringed when he bent over and began drawing circles and odd glyphs upon the wood.

"Uh-- you're scratching my desk."

"I know." The fox continued, plea unheeded. Soon the wood surface was a tangled mess of chalk lines, and with little foot room left he moved onto Jim's vacant chair. From his farther vantage point, he leaned over and waved a claw over the dagger as the symbols resonated with a faint glow.

"Pay attention. I'm only doing this once."

Jim leaned forward, his ears angled in rapt attention as fox waved his hand in a circular motion.

"I was made--" the mage began, "made in fire and heat and pain. Hammered. Folded. Again and again. Yadda, yadda-- yeah, yeah we know--" He pursed his lips for a moment as if scanning some directory. "Made in love and honour by a smith of greatness. Oh, ''please''--" He rolled his eyes. "Oberon-- Oberon-- he made me, sold me. Sold me to-- to-- Blast it! It's hidden-- Magic cloaks? Secrets, secrets-- tell me, blast it! Flying through the air. Blood, hot blood, flowing, dripping. Soul death, taken. Taken-- yeah, yeah-- Found, found, magic, great magic, and hate, ''hate''! Ooo-- hmmm-- A hard power, a form, white glistening burning white. Holy life giving white and ivory. A unicorn. Used. ''Used''. A--" The mage clenched his teeth, his voice straining. "Take life-- all life-- ''all''-- GAH!!"

The dagger exploded, shattering into hard shards that flew across the room, clattering from the walls and floor and ceiling, sounding like hail in a storm.

The wizard tumbled backwards off the chair, falling into a tumbled pile of fox and wool and mud as Jim wiped blood from his forehead. Squeezing around the desk, he kneeled, reaching down to check the fox's pulse -- the mage's muzzle was black with soot, and smoke coiled up from his fur. There--

"Get off me! Blast it!" The fox thrust the goat's hand away. "I'm fine!"

"You're sure?"

The only response was a death-glare.

"Well-- Thank you."

The wizard mumbled so softly that Jim strained to hear it. "They don't pay me enough--" His voice returned to a normal volume. "Next time, tell them to send a blasted scrying mage!"

With that, the fox wizard left, black tail-tip peering from under his dragging cloak. The door knob turned of its own accord and swung open for him, then slammed behind as he muttered about his "only blasted day off."

Only when the door closed, did Jim turn to look at where the dagger had been, now only a soot-black crater on a smoldering book.

"Chrispher!"

The girl's head poked in. "Yes?"

"Tell the Euper Watch captain's to keep their eyes open for a unicorn. Probably--"

"A-- unicorn?"

"Yes, a unicorn! Probably anthro. If--"

"Sir, I remember hearing--" She scratched her chin. "It was about a month ago. Heard it in the lunch room. Some tavern -- the Bronze Unicorn I think -- watch had been summoned. They were saying they saw a white anthro unicorn, female, she'd been in the basement. She shoved her way out, tavern keeper refused to press charges."

"Then it ''is'' a lead! Tell the Captains to keep an eye out for an anthro unicorn. Probably white, but I don't trust anything in this case. Check with the gates, see if anybody remembers a white unicorn, or any unicorn, coming or leaving. Check the gates up to Metamor Town too." Jim started pacing back and forth in what little space he had.

"Nobody is to approach her. Just keep her in sight. And fetch me. And reinforcements. ''Lots'' of reinforce--" He stopped, leaned down, and picked up a fragment, a large one, between two hoof fingers. It was the hilt, intact, even with a bit of the guard. "I'm going up to the keep. I think I've heard of an Oberon -- I want him to look at this dagger."

"That's all sir?"

"Yes, that's all!"

As Chrispher turned and left, Jim tossed the hilt onto his desk. It thunked and slid to a stop against the latest CSI book, which was blacker than a few minutes ago, and starting to smolder.

It seemed that today ''was'' his lucky day!

----

Jim's stomach was stabbing him with pain by the time he found what was, hopefully, Oberon's forge. He'd been wandering the keep for hours, once even reaching a dead end that led into a thoroughly trashed room with, of all things, both reading primers and a dagger target. It was like the keep wouldn't let him go where he needed to go.

''Finally'' he'd ran into somebody, and had been told that Oberon had been advanced into the Long Scouts and had quarters with them. Chocking down both a scream, and a hunk of cud, Jim had made his way to the central keep, and to where the Longs laired. Then it was endless security checks, ID checks, verification, delays, argument, disagreements, harassment, and everything else conceivable, before Jim had finally been let in to the damn long house. After that, at least it had been a reasonably direct path he'd been led upon to the forge where Oberon was likely working.

He chewed the last of his cud thoughtfully. On his way up he'd checked the gates onto ''The Killing Fields'' and one person remembered a white anthro unicorn, female, passing both into Metamor Town, and out of it a few days later, all a couple months ago.

Jim was fairly certain the unicorn was his murderer.

He'd arranged for the gate guard to spend an afternoon in the keep with an artist. Jim didn't want to start posting wanted posters everywhere yet. Give it a few days to see if the Euper Watch could flush her out.

Swallowing the last of his cud, his first stomach grumbled its annoyance. His escort pointed at the forge and there was, indeed, a monstrous white tiger working on something on an anvil. Each *clang* of the beasts hammer rang through the room, making Jim pull his ears against his head.

"Good luck," his escort said.

''Yea, I'll need it'' Jim thought.

With that he walked towards the forge, his hooves clicking on the stone floor. Eli but the tiger was ''big''. Insanely ''huge''. He had to force himself not to flee. The damn tiger could probably twist him into a pretzel with two fingers.

How could anybody ''be'' that big?

He stopped by a table covered in work tools.

Forcing down his fear, ignoring the growing emptiness in his chest, Jim called out: "Are you the Long known as Oberon?"

<nowiki>*</nowiki>clangclangclinkclang*

"Oberon! I need to talk to you!"

<nowiki>*</nowiki>clangclinkclangclang*

Jim took a deep breath. "By right as head of Euper Investigations, I ''demand'' you talk to me!

<nowiki>*</nowiki>clinkclangclangclink*

This wasn't working. Maybe a different tactic. "Smith Oberon! I have a broken dagger of yours!"

<nowiki>*</nowiki>clang--clink* The frightening monstrous tiger put down his hammer, dropped what he was working on into a barrel with a meat cooking roar of bubbling oil, and turned. The parts of his fur that were white were streaked with black that merged into his stripes, and his face was scarred and angry. "Impossible! My weapons ''never'' fail their owner!"

Jim took an involuntary step back. He swallowed, licked his long dry lips. "Well-- this-- this one did!" With that, Jim took ''the dagger'' from his pouch and tossed it on the table.

The tiger's tail whipped back and forth as he stomped over, foot claws tearing at the stone floor. "That is not--" Reaching the table, he stopped, staring. He picked up what was left of the dagger, sniffed at the hilt, ran a finger along what was left of the guard. Emotions whipped through his eyes, his ears stood tall and erect. "''What happened''?"

Drawing from strength he didn't know he head, Jim stood his ground. "Do you know who had this dagger?"

"Who had--? The Long's have some. I have some. The only ones I sold recent were to-- it was at the fair. Curse it! I ''knew'' something was wrong with her--"

"Can you tell me in detail what happened? It's a legal matter. I need to know everything you remember."

"It was--"

Jim listened as Oberon told him about the white unicorn. He'd run into her, almost literally, in the keep a few weeks before the fair. At the fair she'd come seeking the tiger. Oberon told him how she was always looking behind her. She had a sword, but no idea how to use it. But she was ''very'' good with thrown daggers. She had purchased a scabbard for the sword -- the one she had, had had the bottom hacked off as it was too short to hold the sword.

''She must have stolen that'', Jim thought, ''But why carry it around''?

At the end she'd paid with a gem and a few coins.

"So you still have the gem?"

"Somewhere. I have not had time to deal with it. It is in my quarters. Just give me a minute."

Jim waited, getting more and more confused. Someone expert with knives, but with no sword skill, suggested somebody who fought in cities, in generally illegal ways. Not a warrior. That fit-- a thief would know how to enter as an expert. But why a unicorn? Talk about a memorable person! Unless-- the curse? He'd have to check the entry records for Euper for one to three weeks before the time this unicorn had been encountered in the Bronze Unicorn. That was likely only a few days before she went through the gates to Metamor Town. If somebody remembered a woman with a sword entering, maybe he could backtrack her--

"Here it is."

Jim jumped, almost out of his hooves. How in Eli's name could something ''that'' big walk ''that'' silently? Still shaking, he took the gem from the monster's palm. "Was it like this when you got it?"

The tiger nodded.

It was cut-- if the unicorn hadn't had it re-cut after acquiring it. Have to check with jewellers in both Euper and Metamor Town. Likely she brought it in with her-- there were no jewellery burglaries within the last few months. If he did find the jeweller, what he remembered probably wouldn't help much. Maybe a reading-- couldn't hurt--

"May I have it back, please?"

Jim looked up, way up, and felt his ears press against his skull. "I-- I'm sorry. I need to keep this."

"Why?"

"Possible evidence in a murder invest--"

The tiger's voice was cold. "Murder--"

"I'll give you a receipt. How much is it--?"

The tiger grabbed him by his shirt and lifted him until they were muzzle to muzzle. "Did she use the dagger?"

The gem fell from Jim's fingers and clattered on the floor.

The tiger tightened his grip until Jim thought his shirt was going to tear. "O-- over twen-- twenty that--"

"Over. Twenty." The grip tightened. "Who?"

Jim lost it in his pants. "Families-- Poor-- Euper--"

The tiger dropped him, and Jim gasped for breath. "The unicorn will be taken care of."

Saying the next few words was the hardest thing Jim have ever done. "N-- No. *gasp* the-- the Duke does-- *gasp* does not want vigilante-- *gasp*"

"I. Don't. Care. She has taken the piece of my soul in that dagger, and she has cursed it. Cursed ''me'' with it."

"The Duke--"

"It is now personal."

"But--"

"Get. Out. Take the gem. Find out who started this. I will take care of her."

Jim staggered to his hooves and fled.

As he ran, he forced his thoughts to stop trembling in fear. He couldn't talk to the tiger again. He was sure the tiger was kind and nice, would never hurt him, but-- Predator and Prey. And the tiger, Oberon, was so insanely ''huge''. And now pissed.

Almost anybody else, Jim would have gone back to argue with. But, the tiger, he just couldn't.

Which meant that he had to find the unicorn first.

----

{{add|Three days had passed.}} Three days with no more bodies. But then, that was typical, through towards the long end of the scale. The wanted posters were being printed, patrols had been brought down from Metamor. Everything was falling into place.

And yet--

There was memory of a unicorn entering Metamor before the first sighting in the Bronze Unicorn. No records. Nothing.

Oh, Jim had confirmed that she'd been up in the keep. Had visited the library there. Had asked questions typical of the newly changed-- what her species was, any special dietary notes--

And then she'd asked about a symbol that the Chief Librarian dismissed as myth, as an old wive's tale.

As to the motive, well, either she was insane in which case there was no motive. Or, she had purpose, and the only one --

Where had that paper on his desk come from? He'd have sworn it hadn't been there. Unfolding it, he read the contents:

''She is not one of us, but she has purpose. Deal with her as you wish.''

It was signed with the dagger and coin symbol of the Guild of Thieves.

Eli damn! Purpose? Well, if it was the cult, well-- well--

Jim shook his head.

''If'' there was a cult, as a Citizen of Metamor, or as a visitor, her duty was to tell the authorities and let them, in this case the watch, deal with it. She had neither the right, nor the legal authority, to go on her own private crusade of death! No matter--

There was a knock on his door. "Come in."

It was Chrispher who pushed the door open. "Sir, a report has come in-- they think they've found the unicorn!"

Jim leapt to his hooves. "And--?"

"As per your orders, a ''very'' discrete watch is being kept on her.

"Good. Get the task force up. It's tie for us to catch a unicorn--" Before that damn tiger who'd been snarling around Euper beat them to it.

----

They were led to what had to be the poorest, most destitute, most filled with hate and despair, part of Euper. As it had rained the night before, the streets were a thick soup of clinging, gluey mud. Jim wish he'd worn his boots, but was sure he'd need his hooves for climbing soon enough.

Nobody lived here who had a choice. Jim could see eyes peeking through the crack between shutters on the buildings to either side of them. He figured they were more afraid of him than of the serial killer he was often. You'd think that after the assault last winter, people would have left to help fulfill the desperate needs for labourers up in Metamor Town. Only a few had. The rest lurked here in the ruins, the rubble, the tanning-stench filled air, the mud and the fear and the hate. Seagulls cried from over the docks, oars slapped into the water, and the miasma of fish going bad oozed between all the other scents.

A big piece of mud splatted on one of his men's helmets, but there was no sign of who'd thrown it. "Ignore it," Jim said. "We have bigger prey today."

The men grumbled, but he'd picked ones who were the toughest, the most skilled. The ones who knew what the worst of Euper was like.

A massive ox, dressed in rags, stomped through the mud. Jim almost didn't recognize him as a member of the watch. Holding up his hand, Jim heard the task force halt behind him. "You know where she is?" Jim whispered.

The ox nodded. "Caught a gleam o' pearl late last night, it vanished into that alley down there." He pointed. "No-one's left, and that’s the only way in."

''Except for the roofs'' Jim thought. "Good job." He drew his sword, and heard the hiss of weapons being readied behind him. He'd have preferred heavy chain, but steal was more important so he only wore hardened leather, as had the others. He just hoped he'd gotten her first, before that tiger, before the Longs rumoured to have started poking around, before any other intruders from the keep came down and started tramping all over Euper.

Clearing his throat, Jim stepped into the entrance of the alley. "In the name of the Euper Watch, and the Duke of Metamor, you are ordered to surrender to his most blessed and fair justice!"

Jim watched as she slowly stood, almost wobbling. She was dressed in brown leathers, streaked with dirt and mud. Her man was tangled, her fur stained black with bits of white showing. Had she dyed it? And, and her horn. Her-- alicorn. Was that the world? It gleamed like the finest, most precious, pearl ever given to the most noble of ladies. It glowed with power and goodness. It drew the eye, holding the mind. Trapping--

Violently Jim tore his eyes away and shook his head to clear it. He ''hated'' magic sometimes! Watching her from the corner of his yes, he yelled out: "Stand slowly. Make no sudden moves." As she stood, he motioned the guards behind him to follow, almost having to slap the panther to get him to move. The others followed, tromping in the mud, the sun hanging in the sky behind them.

He stopped about ten feet away from her. "In the name of the Duke of Metamor, you are under arrest for mass murder." She closed her eyes. "If you move, you will be killed." How in Eli's name could this be the mass murder? "If--"

The polished pearl glowed, showing eye piercing blinding brightness into the alley. Jim almost fell backwards, only the woman behind him keeping him upright. Others screamed as the world went white, nothing but white. Jim strained to listen, hearing hooves scraping against wood. He blinked, his eyes clearing as suddenly as they'd been blinded.

Somebody behind him called out. "Where the hells did--"

"Everybody all right?" Jim shouted.

All around him others were rubbing at their eyes, shouting and calling out in confusion. "Where is she?" one asked.

The panther beside Jim looked up, pointed. "On the roof!"

Jim pivoted his ears, and he heard the clatter of hooves on tiles fading into the distance. "After her! She's going for the river!" he shouted.

There was confusion, but it cleared. Jim shoved his way through, the thick mud sucking at his hooves as he ran, each step requiring him to almost physically yank one hoof out to move forward. Others crowded around him, pushing, running as fast as they could. He tripped on something, falling into the mud, just catching himself with his hands as his chest splashed into the ooze. The panther helped him up, and he staggered back into a run. Outside the alley the mud thinned, their speed improved. Some stopped and fired bolts up at her. Jim didn't stop them -- he refused to let the murderess get away.

"She's going to the docks!" a woman's voice yelled, and Jim ran faster, his breath coming hard and fast.

The men and women in Jim's task force spread out, going down alleys and along streets. More bolts were fired upwards as their prey ran. Herded. Sunlight shimmered off pearl as she leapt an alley, and that was when Jim knew that he had her! The block she was on was long and narrow, there was nowhere to go.

"You five, stay her -- shoot her if she back tracks." He grabbed the shoulders of two squirrels, a raccoon, the panther still beside him and motioned them up to the roofs. Sheathing his sword, his heart thudding loudly in his chest, he leapt onto the wall, cursing the mud caught between his lobes as his mountain goat hooves scrabbled and clawed at the weathered wood, pushing him upward. The others followed.

Above there was a loud crash, the clatter and scrap of tiles sliding and falling off. Below the unicorn, below them, Jim could hear the shouting of a crowd, cursing the watch, cursing the unicorn. Jim silently cursed them, not having enough breath to speak, as some of his men peeled off to keep the crowd away from the criminal.

He got his head above the edge of the roof just in time to see her back on her hooves, grabbing her leather fedora to keep it from blowing off. She ran and Jim yelled after her: "Surrender! You won't-- be harmed-- if you surrender-- peacefully."

His breath shoved itself into his lungs, and shoved itself back out. The others pushed at him from below and he scrabbled onto the roof. Drawing from a well of strength he didn't know he had, he staggered after her. Not a run, but it was the best he could do.

Jim could smell the stench of the harbour now, and she could too, as she stopped at the edge of the row of buildings. She had no where to go but into the arms of the watch, or into the foul muddy water. He had her! "Hold-- hold your-- fire!" Jim shouted out. He stopped, hands on his knees, fighting to hold his head up as he leaned forward fighting to catch his breath. "If you come-- come now-- you will be tried-- in the Duke's court. Justice will be done!"

All around him, his men tensed.

The Watch tensed.

Jim watched as she took a few steps away from the edge of the roof, her bare hooves gripping the wet tiles with surprising surety. "Why?" Jim asked. "Why kill so-- so many?"

She looked at him, the sun glittering in her eyes, on her alicorn. "Because-- because if I-- I don't, they'll-- they'll kill us all--"

At least she was out of breath too. One mortal weakness. "Who?"

"Ask-- library--" And then she spun, ran, and leapt off the edge of the roof.

All around, men fired bolts up at her, their iron tips hissing around her form. The crowd cheered, enjoying anything that caused problems for the watch. Birds called, oars slapped.

Jim staggered to the edge. There was no need to hurry because he wasn't paid anywhere near enough to dive into the sludge below. Below him, the Watch fired all the bolts they could towards the water. It looked like one sunk home by her spine, but Jim wouldn't put a copper on it. All he could do was watch. Watch her fall, tumbling. Watch her hit the water, splashing. Watch her struggle.

And watch her sink, even as the bolts hissed around her like rain.

"Sir--?" the raccoon asked, coming up to his side. Jim couldn't remember his name. "We did it--"

"Did we?"

"Sir?"

"Something doesn't add-- add up here. And-- she's not dead."

"But how do you ''know''?"

"Because that would be too easy."

Part of him hoped she lived, but the rest of him prayed she died. But, until a body was found, he would have to keep searching. He dreaded having to ask an otter to swim in the stuff below, but he had no choice.

No choice at all.

{{series bar
|previous=[[User:Michael Bard/The Cultists Strike Back!|The Cultists Strike Back!]]
|next=[[User:Michael Bard/Into the Darkness|Into the Darkness]]}}

User:Michael Bard/CSI: Euper

2008-09-03T07:13:40Z

Devin: User:Michael Bard/CSI: Euper moved to User:Michael Bard/Tales of Euper Investigations: Author requested

#REDIRECT [[User:Michael Bard/Tales of Euper Investigations]]

User:Michael Bard/Tales of Euper Investigations

2008-09-03T07:13:40Z

Devin: User:Michael Bard/CSI: Euper moved to User:Michael Bard/Tales of Euper Investigations: Author requested

{{title|name=CSI: Euper|author=Michael Bard|user=Michael Bard}}
{{WIP}}
{{float tag|text={{add|'''Author's Notes: New additions will start with a few words of green text.}} Keep in mind that significant revisions are possible, and sometimes necessary. The entire text is therefore in flux.'''}}{{Comment tag}}[[Category:Metamor Keep]]
[[Category:Michael Bard]]
[[Category:Story]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:CSI: Euper}}
[[Category:Anthropomorphic]][[Category:Cervine]][[Category:Mythical]]
'''October, 707 CR'''

The dagger stared at him. Mocking. Oblivious to the faint drumming of rain against the stone tower wall.

He threw down the scroll on the battered desk and flopped his goat form onto the tied-together wooden square which creaked alarmingly under the pressure. ''Join the town watch'' they said. ''March through the town to cheering crowds and thrown rose petals'' they said.

Instead there were crappy hours, rotten fruit, and the endless mud under his cloven hoof.

And when he'd been promoted to head of Euper Investigations, it was all ''now you can relax and enjoy life''.

Until the murders started.

Oh, there were always murders. Sometimes action was even taken. A body washing up under the docks once a week was usual. Same with a half rotted corpse in an alley. He'd have just left them, except for the standing order for cremation to make sure necromancy didn't raise them.

He stared at the dagger.

But now-- Entire families. Last night five in two groups. All with their throats slit. Entry forced by a pro, the murders quick and thorough. Evidence of a careful search. Nothing taken and the door or window closed as the bastard left.

And then. Two days ago, the dagger, edged in dried blood, left on the floor.

Higher ups wanted the murders solved. Or, in the real meaning, stopped. Else heads -- in this case his -- would roll.

He would have sworn the dagger was mocking him.

He glared back, scowling at its leather-bound hilt. His eyes slid down its length to the bound book it was thrust into: ''CSI: Metamor''.

Ha!

He'd read the first one. Or tired to. A building full of highly trained mages and clerics. Careful records. Undisturbed crime scenes. Elaborate illusions recreating complex murders in agonizing detail. The criminal always being caught--

Ha!

He had one guy directly under him, well former guy now girl, this desk, a room it could barely fit in. Eli! He'd sent to the keep ''two days ago'' for a mage or somebody to do a reading on the presumed murder weapon.

And this was all in addition to his dirties running the watch.

And, so far, nothing.

He turned his hatred to the latest episode of ''CSI: Metamor -- the Dollhouse Murderer''. The printing house up by the keep kept sending him complementary copies. Eli damn--

There was a knock on the door. Jim yanked his eyes away from the book, from ''the dagger'' as the knock repeated, his ears flipping to catch the sound.

"The door's open, Chrispher." The shy knock had told him it was his arrant female assistant knocking. She'd been male before the curse, and now she refused to touch a weapon.

Now she was his secretary.

She pushed the door open, her cute little girl face blasted with a scowl. "That mage is here."

Finally! "Send him in!"

"Okay--"

Her tone of voice struck him as odder than usual, and it didn't take long for the reason to make itself apparent. The ''mage'' who came in could barely be seen behind his desk, and Jim didn't get the full impact of the wizard's appearance until said wizard hopped or climbed onto the desk.

The magic worker looked like a fox, but was dark gray in colour and wrapped in a soaked silver-threaded black wool cloak. His eyes glittered, and glared, hating the entire world. Jim almost laughed, the fox looked young enough that he had to still be nursing, except he noticed the Patrol ''Captain'' badge.

Jim saluted. "Sir."

A big blob of muck slipped from the mage's cloak onto the edge of the desk, and then fell off, splatting on the floor.

"Blasted rain! When I find out who's brain-deceased idea it was to send a fire mage--" The fox shook himself, the weight of the cloak almost dragging him backwards off the desk. "I'm here. What do you want?"

Jim blinked, tail pulled up against his spine. "Umm-- sir-- That dagger," he pointed. "I need a reading. Who owns it? What did they do with it?"

The fox blinked back. "Reading? I'm a fire mage, not a blasted CSI specialist!" The wizard's eyes sparked as water dripped onto the floor.

The damn fox probably ''loved'' those stories. "I'm sorry. I did specify--"

"Whatever--" The mage said, rolling his eyes. "That dagger?"

Jim nodded. "We've tried to minimize contact with it as much as possible. The blood on it was there when we found it."

"You ''think''?" the fox said dryly. He produced a long piece of chalk and tapped it against the underside of his muzzle. He circled the murder weapon once, toeclaws digging into Jim's late grandmother's desk. It was his only memento of her! The goat cringed when he bent over and began drawing circles and odd glyphs upon the wood.

"Uh-- you're scratching my desk."

"I know." The fox continued, plea unheeded. Soon the wood surface was a tangled mess of chalk lines, and with little foot room left he moved onto Jim's vacant chair. From his farther vantage point, he leaned over and waved a claw over the dagger as the symbols resonated with a faint glow.

"Pay attention. I'm only doing this once."

Jim leaned forward, his ears angled in rapt attention as fox waved his hand in a circular motion.

"I was made--" the mage began, "made in fire and heat and pain. Hammered. Folded. Again and again. Yadda, yadda-- yeah, yeah we know--" He pursed his lips for a moment as if scanning some directory. "Made in love and honour by a smith of greatness. Oh, ''please''--" He rolled his eyes. "Oberon-- Oberon-- he made me, sold me. Sold me to-- to-- Blast it! It's hidden-- Magic cloaks? Secrets, secrets-- tell me, blast it! Flying through the air. Blood, hot blood, flowing, dripping. Soul death, taken. Taken-- yeah, yeah-- Found, found, magic, great magic, and hate, ''hate''! Ooo-- hmmm-- A hard power, a form, white glistening burning white. Holy life giving white and ivory. A unicorn. Used. ''Used''. A--" The mage clenched his teeth, his voice straining. "Take life-- all life-- ''all''-- GAH!!"

The dagger exploded, shattering into hard shards that flew across the room, clattering from the walls and floor and ceiling, sounding like hail in a storm.

The wizard tumbled backwards off the chair, falling into a tumbled pile of fox and wool and mud as Jim wiped blood from his forehead. Squeezing around the desk, he kneeled, reaching down to check the fox's pulse -- the mage's muzzle was black with soot, and smoke coiled up from his fur. There--

"Get off me! Blast it!" The fox thrust the goat's hand away. "I'm fine!"

"You're sure?"

The only response was a death-glare.

"Well-- Thank you."

The wizard mumbled so softly that Jim strained to hear it. "They don't pay me enough--" His voice returned to a normal volume. "Next time, tell them to send a blasted scrying mage!"

With that, the fox wizard left, black tail-tip peering from under his dragging cloak. The door knob turned of its own accord and swung open for him, then slammed behind as he muttered about his "only blasted day off."

Only when the door closed, did Jim turn to look at where the dagger had been, now only a soot-black crater on a smoldering book.

"Chrispher!"

The girl's head poked in. "Yes?"

"Tell the Euper Watch captain's to keep their eyes open for a unicorn. Probably--"

"A-- unicorn?"

"Yes, a unicorn! Probably anthro. If--"

"Sir, I remember hearing--" She scratched her chin. "It was about a month ago. Heard it in the lunch room. Some tavern -- the Bronze Unicorn I think -- watch had been summoned. They were saying they saw a white anthro unicorn, female, she'd been in the basement. She shoved her way out, tavern keeper refused to press charges."

"Then it ''is'' a lead! Tell the Captains to keep an eye out for an anthro unicorn. Probably white, but I don't trust anything in this case. Check with the gates, see if anybody remembers a white unicorn, or any unicorn, coming or leaving. Check the gates up to Metamor Town too." Jim started pacing back and forth in what little space he had.

"Nobody is to approach her. Just keep her in sight. And fetch me. And reinforcements. ''Lots'' of reinforce--" He stopped, leaned down, and picked up a fragment, a large one, between two hoof fingers. It was the hilt, intact, even with a bit of the guard. "I'm going up to the keep. I think I've heard of an Oberon -- I want him to look at this dagger."

"That's all sir?"

"Yes, that's all!"

As Chrispher turned and left, Jim tossed the hilt onto his desk. It thunked and slid to a stop against the latest CSI book, which was blacker than a few minutes ago, and starting to smolder.

It seemed that today ''was'' his lucky day!

----

Jim's stomach was stabbing him with pain by the time he found what was, hopefully, Oberon's forge. He'd been wandering the keep for hours, once even reaching a dead end that led into a thoroughly trashed room with, of all things, both reading primers and a dagger target. It was like the keep wouldn't let him go where he needed to go.

''Finally'' he'd ran into somebody, and had been told that Oberon had been advanced into the Long Scouts and had quarters with them. Chocking down both a scream, and a hunk of cud, Jim had made his way to the central keep, and to where the Longs laired. Then it was endless security checks, ID checks, verification, delays, argument, disagreements, harassment, and everything else conceivable, before Jim had finally been let in to the damn long house. After that, at least it had been a reasonably direct path he'd been led upon to the forge where Oberon was likely working.

He chewed the last of his cud thoughtfully. On his way up he'd checked the gates onto ''The Killing Fields'' and one person remembered a white anthro unicorn, female, passing both into Metamor Town, and out of it a few days later, all a couple months ago.

Jim was fairly certain the unicorn was his murderer.

He'd arranged for the gate guard to spend an afternoon in the keep with an artist. Jim didn't want to start posting wanted posters everywhere yet. Give it a few days to see if the Euper Watch could flush her out.

Swallowing the last of his cud, his first stomach grumbled its annoyance. His escort pointed at the forge and there was, indeed, a monstrous white tiger working on something on an anvil. Each *clang* of the beasts hammer rang through the room, making Jim pull his ears against his head.

"Good luck," his escort said.

''Yea, I'll need it'' Jim thought.

With that he walked towards the forge, his hooves clicking on the stone floor. Eli but the tiger was ''big''. Insanely ''huge''. He had to force himself not to flee. The damn tiger could probably twist him into a pretzel with two fingers.

How could anybody ''be'' that big?

He stopped by a table covered in work tools.

Forcing down his fear, ignoring the growing emptiness in his chest, Jim called out: "Are you the Long known as Oberon?"

<nowiki>*</nowiki>clangclangclinkclang*

"Oberon! I need to talk to you!"

<nowiki>*</nowiki>clangclinkclangclang*

Jim took a deep breath. "By right as head of Euper Investigations, I ''demand'' you talk to me!

<nowiki>*</nowiki>clinkclangclangclink*

This wasn't working. Maybe a different tactic. "Smith Oberon! I have a broken dagger of yours!"

<nowiki>*</nowiki>clang--clink* The frightening monstrous tiger put down his hammer, dropped what he was working on into a barrel with a meat cooking roar of bubbling oil, and turned. The parts of his fur that were white were streaked with black that merged into his stripes, and his face was scarred and angry. "Impossible! My weapons ''never'' fail their owner!"

Jim took an involuntary step back. He swallowed, licked his long dry lips. "Well-- this-- this one did!" With that, Jim took ''the dagger'' from his pouch and tossed it on the table.

The tiger's tail whipped back and forth as he stomped over, foot claws tearing at the stone floor. "That is not--" Reaching the table, he stopped, staring. He picked up what was left of the dagger, sniffed at the hilt, ran a finger along what was left of the guard. Emotions whipped through his eyes, his ears stood tall and erect. "''What happened''?"

Drawing from strength he didn't know he head, Jim stood his ground. "Do you know who had this dagger?"

"Who had--? The Long's have some. I have some. The only ones I sold recent were to-- it was at the fair. Curse it! I ''knew'' something was wrong with her--"

"Can you tell me in detail what happened? It's a legal matter. I need to know everything you remember."

"It was--"

Jim listened as Oberon told him about the white unicorn. He'd run into her, almost literally, in the keep a few weeks before the fair. At the fair she'd come seeking the tiger. Oberon told him how she was always looking behind her. She had a sword, but no idea how to use it. But she was ''very'' good with thrown daggers. She had purchased a scabbard for the sword -- the one she had, had had the bottom hacked off as it was too short to hold the sword.

''She must have stolen that'', Jim thought, ''But why carry it around''?

At the end she'd paid with a gem and a few coins.

"So you still have the gem?"

"Somewhere. I have not had time to deal with it. It is in my quarters. Just give me a minute."

Jim waited, getting more and more confused. Someone expert with knives, but with no sword skill, suggested somebody who fought in cities, in generally illegal ways. Not a warrior. That fit-- a thief would know how to enter as an expert. But why a unicorn? Talk about a memorable person! Unless-- the curse? He'd have to check the entry records for Euper for one to three weeks before the time this unicorn had been encountered in the Bronze Unicorn. That was likely only a few days before she went through the gates to Metamor Town. If somebody remembered a woman with a sword entering, maybe he could backtrack her--

"Here it is."

Jim jumped, almost out of his hooves. How in Eli's name could something ''that'' big walk ''that'' silently? Still shaking, he took the gem from the monster's palm. "Was it like this when you got it?"

The tiger nodded.

It was cut-- if the unicorn hadn't had it re-cut after acquiring it. Have to check with jewellers in both Euper and Metamor Town. Likely she brought it in with her-- there were no jewellery burglaries within the last few months. If he did find the jeweller, what he remembered probably wouldn't help much. Maybe a reading-- couldn't hurt--

"May I have it back, please?"

Jim looked up, way up, and felt his ears press against his skull. "I-- I'm sorry. I need to keep this."

"Why?"

"Possible evidence in a murder invest--"

The tiger's voice was cold. "Murder--"

"I'll give you a receipt. How much is it--?"

The tiger grabbed him by his shirt and lifted him until they were muzzle to muzzle. "Did she use the dagger?"

The gem fell from Jim's fingers and clattered on the floor.

The tiger tightened his grip until Jim thought his shirt was going to tear. "O-- over twen-- twenty that--"

"Over. Twenty." The grip tightened. "Who?"

Jim lost it in his pants. "Families-- Poor-- Euper--"

The tiger dropped him, and Jim gasped for breath. "The unicorn will be taken care of."

Saying the next few words was the hardest thing Jim have ever done. "N-- No. *gasp* the-- the Duke does-- *gasp* does not want vigilante-- *gasp*"

"I. Don't. Care. She has taken the piece of my soul in that dagger, and she has cursed it. Cursed ''me'' with it."

"The Duke--"

"It is now personal."

"But--"

"Get. Out. Take the gem. Find out who started this. I will take care of her."

Jim staggered to his hooves and fled.

As he ran, he forced his thoughts to stop trembling in fear. He couldn't talk to the tiger again. He was sure the tiger was kind and nice, would never hurt him, but-- Predator and Prey. And the tiger, Oberon, was so insanely ''huge''. And now pissed.

Almost anybody else, Jim would have gone back to argue with. But, the tiger, he just couldn't.

Which meant that he had to find the unicorn first.

----

{{add|Three days had passed.}} Three days with no more bodies. But then, that was typical, through towards the long end of the scale. The wanted posters were being printed, patrols had been brought down from Metamor. Everything was falling into place.

And yet--

There was memory of a unicorn entering Metamor before the first sighting in the Bronze Unicorn. No records. Nothing.

Oh, Jim had confirmed that she'd been up in the keep. Had visited the library there. Had asked questions typical of the newly changed-- what her species was, any special dietary notes--

And then she'd asked about a symbol that the Chief Librarian dismissed as myth, as an old wive's tale.

As to the motive, well, either she was insane in which case there was no motive. Or, she had purpose, and the only one --

Where had that paper on his desk come from? He'd have sworn it hadn't been there. Unfolding it, he read the contents:

''She is not one of us, but she has purpose. Deal with her as you wish.''

It was signed with the dagger and coin symbol of the Guild of Thieves.

Eli damn! Purpose? Well, if it was the cult, well-- well--

Jim shook his head.

''If'' there was a cult, as a Citizen of Metamor, or as a visitor, her duty was to tell the authorities and let them, in this case the watch, deal with it. She had neither the right, nor the legal authority, to go on her own private crusade of death! No matter--

There was a knock on his door. "Come in."

It was Chrispher who pushed the door open. "Sir, a report has come in-- they think they've found the unicorn!"

Jim leapt to his hooves. "And--?"

"As per your orders, a ''very'' discrete watch is being kept on her.

"Good. Get the task force up. It's tie for us to catch a unicorn--" Before that damn tiger who'd been snarling around Euper beat them to it.

----

They were led to what had to be the poorest, most destitute, most filled with hate and despair, part of Euper. As it had rained the night before, the streets were a thick soup of clinging, gluey mud. Jim wish he'd worn his boots, but was sure he'd need his hooves for climbing soon enough.

Nobody lived here who had a choice. Jim could see eyes peeking through the crack between shutters on the buildings to either side of them. He figured they were more afraid of him than of the serial killer he was often. You'd think that after the assault last winter, people would have left to help fulfill the desperate needs for labourers up in Metamor Town. Only a few had. The rest lurked here in the ruins, the rubble, the tanning-stench filled air, the mud and the fear and the hate. Seagulls cried from over the docks, oars slapped into the water, and the miasma of fish going bad oozed between all the other scents.

A big piece of mud splatted on one of his men's helmets, but there was no sign of who'd thrown it. "Ignore it," Jim said. "We have bigger prey today."

The men grumbled, but he'd picked ones who were the toughest, the most skilled. The ones who knew what the worst of Euper was like.

A massive ox, dressed in rags, stomped through the mud. Jim almost didn't recognize him as a member of the watch. Holding up his hand, Jim heard the task force halt behind him. "You know where she is?" Jim whispered.

The ox nodded. "Caught a gleam o' pearl late last night, it vanished into that alley down there." He pointed. "No-one's left, and that’s the only way in."

''Except for the roofs'' Jim thought. "Good job." He drew his sword, and heard the hiss of weapons being readied behind him. He'd have preferred heavy chain, but steal was more important so he only wore hardened leather, as had the others. He just hoped he'd gotten her first, before that tiger, before the Longs rumoured to have started poking around, before any other intruders from the keep came down and started tramping all over Euper.

Clearing his throat, Jim stepped into the entrance of the alley. "In the name of the Euper Watch, and the Duke of Metamor, you are ordered to surrender to his most blessed and fair justice!"

Jim watched as she slowly stood, almost wobbling. She was dressed in brown leathers, streaked with dirt and mud. Her man was tangled, her fur stained black with bits of white showing. Had she dyed it? And, and her horn. Her-- alicorn. Was that the world? It gleamed like the finest, most precious, pearl ever given to the most noble of ladies. It glowed with power and goodness. It drew the eye, holding the mind. Trapping--

Violently Jim tore his eyes away and shook his head to clear it. He ''hated'' magic sometimes! Watching her from the corner of his yes, he yelled out: "Stand slowly. Make no sudden moves." As she stood, he motioned the guards behind him to follow, almost having to slap the panther to get him to move. The others followed, tromping in the mud, the sun hanging in the sky behind them.

He stopped about ten feet away from her. "In the name of the Duke of Metamor, you are under arrest for mass murder." She closed her eyes. "If you move, you will be killed." How in Eli's name could this be the mass murder? "If--"

The polished pearl glowed, showing eye piercing blinding brightness into the alley. Jim almost fell backwards, only the woman behind him keeping him upright. Others screamed as the world went white, nothing but white. Jim strained to listen, hearing hooves scraping against wood. He blinked, his eyes clearing as suddenly as they'd been blinded.

Somebody behind him called out. "Where the hells did--"

"Everybody all right?" Jim shouted.

All around him others were rubbing at their eyes, shouting and calling out in confusion. "Where is she?" one asked.

The panther beside Jim looked up, pointed. "On the roof!"

Jim pivoted his ears, and he heard the clatter of hooves on tiles fading into the distance. "After her! She's going for the river!" he shouted.

There was confusion, but it cleared. Jim shoved his way through, the thick mud sucking at his hooves as he ran, each step requiring him to almost physically yank one hoof out to move forward. Others crowded around him, pushing, running as fast as they could. He tripped on something, falling into the mud, just catching himself with his hands as his chest splashed into the ooze. The panther helped him up, and he staggered back into a run. Outside the alley the mud thinned, their speed improved. Some stopped and fired bolts up at her. Jim didn't stop them -- he refused to let the murderess get away.

"She's going to the docks!" a woman's voice yelled, and Jim ran faster, his breath coming hard and fast.

The men and women in Jim's task force spread out, going down alleys and along streets. More bolts were fired upwards as their prey ran. Herded. Sunlight shimmered off pearl as she leapt an alley, and that was when Jim knew that he had her! The block she was on was long and narrow, there was nowhere to go.

"You five, stay her -- shoot her if she back tracks." He grabbed the shoulders of two squirrels, a raccoon, the panther still beside him and motioned them up to the roofs. Sheathing his sword, his heart thudding loudly in his chest, he leapt onto the wall, cursing the mud caught between his lobes as his mountain goat hooves scrabbled and clawed at the weathered wood, pushing him upward. The others followed.

Above there was a loud crash, the clatter and scrap of tiles sliding and falling off. Below the unicorn, below them, Jim could hear the shouting of a crowd, cursing the watch, cursing the unicorn. Jim silently cursed them, not having enough breath to speak, as some of his men peeled off to keep the crowd away from the criminal.

He got his head above the edge of the roof just in time to see her back on her hooves, grabbing her leather fedora to keep it from blowing off. She ran and Jim yelled after her: "Surrender! You won't-- be harmed-- if you surrender-- peacefully."

His breath shoved itself into his lungs, and shoved itself back out. The others pushed at him from below and he scrabbled onto the roof. Drawing from a well of strength he didn't know he had, he staggered after her. Not a run, but it was the best he could do.

Jim could smell the stench of the harbour now, and she could too, as she stopped at the edge of the row of buildings. She had no where to go but into the arms of the watch, or into the foul muddy water. He had her! "Hold-- hold your-- fire!" Jim shouted out. He stopped, hands on his knees, fighting to hold his head up as he leaned forward fighting to catch his breath. "If you come-- come now-- you will be tried-- in the Duke's court. Justice will be done!"

All around him, his men tensed.

The Watch tensed.

Jim watched as she took a few steps away from the edge of the roof, her bare hooves gripping the wet tiles with surprising surety. "Why?" Jim asked. "Why kill so-- so many?"

She looked at him, the sun glittering in her eyes, on her alicorn. "Because-- because if I-- I don't, they'll-- they'll kill us all--"

At least she was out of breath too. One mortal weakness. "Who?"

"Ask-- library--" And then she spun, ran, and leapt off the edge of the roof.

All around, men fired bolts up at her, their iron tips hissing around her form. The crowd cheered, enjoying anything that caused problems for the watch. Birds called, oars slapped.

Jim staggered to the edge. There was no need to hurry because he wasn't paid anywhere near enough to dive into the sludge below. Below him, the Watch fired all the bolts they could towards the water. It looked like one sunk home by her spine, but Jim wouldn't put a copper on it. All he could do was watch. Watch her fall, tumbling. Watch her hit the water, splashing. Watch her struggle.

And watch her sink, even as the bolts hissed around her like rain.

"Sir--?" the raccoon asked, coming up to his side. Jim couldn't remember his name. "We did it--"

"Did we?"

"Sir?"

"Something doesn't add-- add up here. And-- she's not dead."

"But how do you ''know''?"

"Because that would be too easy."

Part of him hoped she lived, but the rest of him prayed she died. But, until a body was found, he would have to keep searching. He dreaded having to ask an otter to swim in the stuff below, but he had no choice.

No choice at all.

{{series bar
|previous=[[User:Michael Bard/The Cultists Strike Back!|The Cultists Strike Back!]]
|next=[[User:Michael Bard/Into the Darkness|Into the Darkness]]}}

User talk:JonBuck/Eve's Apple

2008-08-22T06:09:34Z

Devin: Good readin

The start of this story is inspired by something that happened to me coming home from the 1999 Bash. It was the ''worst'' travel nightmare I've ever experienced. First, the TN weather and having 54 other people at Rabbit's house made a regular eating schedule impossible. I got very sick, and as he was taking me to the airport (I was the very last to leave) I got heat exhaustion and dehydrated, missing my flight. Ended up at Vanderbilt Medical Center because I was literally fainting inside the truck on the way there.

We tried again that night, but the weather had turned bad and it was likely I'd miss my connecting flight in Houston. So I ended up staying another night.

When we tried again the next evening, there were more storms, more delays. But my connecting flight was delayed also. I took a gamble and tried to meet my connecting flight. Didn't make it.

Spent the most grindingly boring night in an airport, not sleeping. Empty airport. They upgraded me to first class, at least. This turned out to be important. Because after the plane left the gate we were stuck on the tarmac for over two hours as another storm passed overhead.

Finally got home at 3pm. Promptly went to bed and slept for 18 hours. It's been endless story fodder ever since. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 01:12, 3 August 2008 (EDT)

This storys really got me hooked. I love all the little details that you put in, I'm about a two hundred pound, six foot guy too but unless I actually consciously think of it I don't think of myself as being all that big.

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 02:09, 22 August 2008 (EDT)

User:Michael Bard/Into the Darkness

2008-08-22T04:47:32Z

Devin: title change

{{title|name=Into the Darkness|author=Michael Bard|user=Michael Bard}}
{{WIP}}
{{float tag|text={{add|'''Author's Notes: New additions will start with a few words of green text.}} Keep in mind that significant revisions are possible, and sometimes necessary. The entire text is therefore in flux.'''}}{{Comment tag}}[[Category:Metamor Keep]]
[[Category:Michael Bard]]
[[Category:Story]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Into the Depths}}
[[Category:Anthropomorphic]][[Category:Cervine]][[Category:Mythical]]
'''October, 707 CR'''

Yvarra was miserable.

Nearly a month. A month of murder. A month of killing her soul night by night. She was afraid of everything now. Never going to inns or taverns, scrounging through the garbage for what she could get, sneaking nibbles of rooftop gardens between her endless search.

She'd tried eating food in the houses of those she-- she--

No! She would ''not'' sugar coat the facts.

The houses of those she'd ''murdered''. She'd subsisted off food there, until the cult began poisoning it. Likely not all of it, but it took more energy to heal herself from the poison than she'd gain trying to find out if any was poisoned.

If they had let anything other than meat uncontaminated.

Her stomachs grumbled and the ''Sword of Songs'' hummed against her back, offering what support it could.

So, here she was. Wet, coated in mud from the rain that had fallen on and off over the last three days. Cold, hungry, miserable.

But, what could she do?

So much of her just wanted to leave. To walk out through the town gates, leave Metamor and never come back.

Only two things kept her here though. Two. Her word -- though that was wearing thin -- and the little girl-- Ansela. Her trusting face, her utter belief that tomorrow would be warm and sunny and safe. That every day that was to come would be warm and sunny and safe.

The trust and hope in her eyes were all that kept Yvarra going.

It was late afternoon, the sun had found a crack between the buildings and into the alley she was hiding in the back of, sleeping during the day, hidden in garbage and abandoned refuse.

The only place she found safe anymore.

As she began stretching, she went through her daily string of curses. Cursing the cult. Cursing what they made her do. Cursing the nameless evil she was supposedly going to stop, though she wasn't doing very well at ''that'' yet. And cursing the so-called ''Lady Tarathana'' that had started her on this doomed quest.

It was getting to the point that, if she ever ''did'' succeed, she'd join a monastery and devote the rest of her life to quiet contemplation of the innocent, and far ''far'' away from the chaos and horror of the world.

Yawning, she unswallowed and chewed on a bit of dry stringy cud -- all that she had yesterday. Tonight-- tonight she'd finally have to devote herself to stealing lots of good ''safe'' food. She couldn't go on without anymore.

Maybe tonight she wouldn't have to k--

" In the name of the Euper Watch, and the Duke of Metamor, you are ordered to surrender to his most blessed and fair justice!"

Head whipping around, Yvarra stared. The sunlight that had found its way to her was gone, blocked by standing figures crowding the edge of the alley, and piling back into the muddy street. How in the Nine Hells--

But-- Duke of Metamor? They weren't the cult-- Weren't they?"

Licking her nostrils, she sniffed. She shoved past the mud and rain and garbage, seeking what information her nose could find. Sweat, leather, oil, a veritable menagerie of animals.

"Stand slowly. Make no sudden moves."

How in Klepnos' name had they snuck up on her. Was she ''that'' tired. Or--

She resumed cursing under her breath. The damn sword had always warned her. But, not this time. Why not this time? Why--

They were the thrice-damned watch.

But-- what could they want with her? She'd left no evidence, her alicorn had cloaked her from magic, she'd been certain no one had seen her--

Take things one step at a time. Keeping her hands in front of her, she slowly stood as a trio of guard approached. One, the leader, was a goat, the other two-- one was a woman, though built like a man, and the other was feline of some sort. Yvarra couldn't tell their colouration as the sun was behind them.

Staying still, except for her breathing, she watched, sucking air in through her nostrils, sorting through scents in the hope of finding something, anything. More and more silhouettes moved into the alley from the street outside.

How damn many watch had they set on her?

She just needed a moment. Just-- In the bathhouse her alicorn had flashed so bright it had momentarily blinded the cultists. But, she hadn't done it! Yet-- Closing her eyes, she ransacked her memories, pulling up that moment. Pulling up ''exactly'' what it had felt like--

The goat began speaking. "In the name of the Duke of Metamor, you are under arrest for mass murder. If you move, you will be killed. If--"

She had it!

Focusing only on that memory, on the memory of the sensation, she shoved her magic out and into her alicorn. And then-- it happened! Eye-searing light filled the alley, and the watch screamed, grabbing their eyes. Yvarra hoped they'd be all right, she didn't want to kill them, didn't want to kill anybody. The cultists had forced her hand, but the watch was just doing their job. She respected them.

But, she had to get out of her!

Leaping up out of the mud, her hooves scrabbled as her hands scratched, and she got a grip on the worn wood. Like a cat-- or more likely a mountain goat-- she was up the wall and on the roofs.

"Where the hells did--" "Everybody all right?" "Where is she?" "On the roof!"

Yvarra didn't have time to hear more, and instead just ran, her hooves clopping loudly on the tiles as she ran for her life. Bolts started hissing up from the ground. They weren't aimed, and their force was somewhat expended, but there were a ''lot'' of them.

She leapt across an alley, turning towards the river. Or river tributary-- she'd never been able to find out for sure.

"She's going to the docks!"

Yes, she was. And-- Nine Hells! Somehow she'd gotten trapped, maybe herded, onto a long row of buildings that led straight to the water, a street on either side. Yvarra was trapped.

She concentrated on running, on keeping her balance on the canted roof. On landing safely when she leapt over another alley. Her breath was coming short and sharp, a pain blossomed in her chest. Her diet was catching up to her, and--

She grabbed her hat to keep it from blowing off.

And-- Could she surrender? Give herself into the Watch's custody? And then be taken to jail, if not tried and executed immediately. Trapped in a locked cell for the Cult to find her and kill her, or poison her, or knock her out -- whatever they wanted.

Maybe the cult had set out evidence for the Watch. Set things up to screw her. But-- She'd used daggers, hadn't been able to recover them. It could be ''any'' of those. Great-- just great--

She tripped over a missing shingle and fell on her chest and chin, having learned from bitter experience to raise her head to keep her alicorn from getting caught. The calls of the watch were falling behind, but it didn't matter. She could see a crowd gathering, probably betting on whether or not she'd escape. Blood pounding in her ears, heart pounding to burst out of her chest, she staggered back onto her hooves. There wasn't much further to go. And then--

What?

The goat's voice called out from behind: "Surrender! You won't-- be harmed-- if you surrender-- peacefully." He was gasping for breath too.

Surrender-- an opportunity to rest. It seemed like such a pleasant dream-- No! She'd ''never'' been caught. It-- it was a matter of ''pride''. And-- safety. Yea, safety.

She reached the end and fell over backwards stopping herself from going over. If the stench of the harbour hadn't been so bad, hadn't been a wall of foulness, she'd not have had enough warning to stop.

But-- what else ''could'' she do? Fight? No! She ''refused'' to kill innocents. Her soul was already blackened enough.

Life had been so much simpler before ''Lady Tarathana'' had drafted her, when she'd only herself to look out for. Now--

Ansela's face drifted in front of her eyes.

No! She would ''not'' let the child down!

It was all the honour she had left.

What to do? What to do?

She forced herself back to her hooves. The Watch wasn't firing -- though she could see they had their crossbows. They could wait her out. After all, where could she go? Where--?

Before her was the harbour, silted, dirty, the water black and oily. It was so bad she almost couldn't smell the runoff from the tanneries. A handful of barges were tied up, loaders had stopped and were looking at her, pointing. Gulls swooped and drifted along the shore, diving down for scraps of fish. A group of-- of ''otters'', human otters, were upstream-- fishing?

Something echoed from behind her and she turned her head enough to see -- more watch, on the roof behind her. The goat leading. His entire front was covered in mud -- he must have fallen. Yvarra ''did'' have to admire his dedication though.

What to do-- what to--?

There was only one choice -- the harbour. She didn't know how to swim, had never learned. But-- Surrendering was signing her death warrant. Given how the Eli-damned cult had tracked her, harassed her, they ''had'' to have infiltrated the guard. Arrange to have the right people guarding her cell, and then enough bolts that even she couldn't heal.

Klepnos but she was ''hungry''!

The goat and the men-- well, the animals-- all arboreal-- a pair of squirrels, a raccoon, the feline. No wonder they'd been able to climb up so well. Must have let down a rope for the captain. If he had needed it.

"Hold-- hold your-- fire!" the goat shouted down before turning to face her. "If you come-- come now-- you will be tried-- in the Duke's court. Just will be done!" the goat called out.

If she lived that long.

She backed up, slowly turning to face her accusers. Her hands itched for the daggers she had left, but she refused. She would ''not'' kill an innocent. If the Watch were innocent-- The ''Sword of Songs'' was silent.

The Watch tensed.

She let herself slump, controlling it more to keep from collapsing completely than to make it look good. How she'd stay afloat she had no clue. But-- it was better than death. And-- and maybe the last shard of her self respect would stay with her. Never captured, even unto death.

Yvarra took a few steps away from the edge of the roof. Who knew how deep the river was, or what kind of sludge she would dive into--

It would be so ''easy'' to just surrender.

Easy to ''give up''.

''That's right. Give up. Betray your task. Let Ansela die''.

He knees shook, her legs shook, and she fought to breathe.

Which was better? Surrender and rest?

No! That had ''never'' been her way.

Right or wrong, she knew then that her decision had been made.

"Why?" the goat asked. "Why kill so-- so many?"

She stared at him. He didn't know. She'd have to go soon. Just a moment longer to catch her breath. Just a moment. "Because-- because if I-- I don't, they'll-- they'll kill us all--"

"Who?"

"Ask-- library--"

Forcing out the last of her strength, Yvarra spun around and ran, ran with all the breath she had left. Which wasn't much. Ran to the edge of the roof and dove off, hands in front of her, tumbling and falling. Sun, cloud, water, building. Crossbow bolts hissed past her, one shoved itself into her back, scrapping off a rib. Grain-- a barge of grain-- down-- down river--

And then she hit the water.

It was like a stone wall, the last of her breath was shoved out of her, she could feel ribs breaking. Without thinking she sucked in another breath, pulling the far liquid into her lungs. Coughing, fighting, her alicorn glowing, her body burning, she sank into the blackness.

Her last act was to grab onto her hat--

----

Yvarra sank, her body hot with fear and terror. But, most of all, over whelming ''failure''. Beaten by the Watch! It was a good thing that she was dead so that she wouldn't have to live it down.

Her hooves sank into the thick slimey ooze at the bottom, and her body sank after it. The mud slid past her, oozing through her fur, her clothes, through the hand still holding her hat. Turning over, she coughed, a last few bubbles of air slowly rising to the surface as the thick liquid settled in her lungs.

''Klepnos, forgive me--''

Maybe she should have tossed the ''Sword of Songs'' on the roof before she'd leapt. Given it to somebody else so that they could fight the damn cult.

She was so very ''very'' tired--

At least she'd gone out in an epic fashion!

Though--

Um--

By the Seven Hells, ''why wasn't she dead''?

For a moment she drifted there, gently pushed along, her hooves and legs sliding through the fine silt. She could feel a coolness all around, over her body, deep insider her. She could feel the water pressing against her. And-- and--

She could feel the warmth trickle from her alicorn into her body.

She wasn't comfortable, but she wasn't in pain either.

Like-- like-- when she'd been in the dye! No tightness in her chest--

That brought up the immediate question: how long could she last like this? Not long, given her fatigue level, and lack of food.

Her stomachs grumbled angrily in agreement.

She coughed. A bit of thin slimy cud worked its way up and into her mouth where she chewed it.

Yvarra couldn't have long. So-- what now? Swim? How? And where?

As if in answer to her unspoken prayer, the ''Sword of Songs'' gently thrummed behind her as the -- current? -- gently pushed her along. The tone wasn't a song, or a warning. It was more an-- an ''envelopment'' of sound. A tone all around her. But-- was it ''stronger'' in one direction? Yes!

Without any skill she paddled, dragged, hopped, staggered, fell and drifted along with the current. She felt the pressure of time, she felt coldness claiming more and more of her body as her final reserves of strength began to fail. The sword's tone rose, higher, stronger; she followed it like a dog blindly following a scent. She shivered, her teeth chattered. The direct changed, the sword focussed above. Above-- There were-- were-- rocks, something. Mindless she climbed, climbed up into the darkness and chill.

Like a drowned rat she used her last strength to drag herself onto the cold slimy rock. Her body shook, exploded as she coughed and gagged out the water and mud and slime. With a rough, desperate gurgle, she sucked in air. Blessed, sweet, air--

{{add|Time passed.}} And endless time of darkness and desperation. Yvarra didn't think, she just shuffled around in the blackness, her nose, or her need, finding bits of fungi, subterranean mosses and mushrooms that she gulped down, desperately filling her empty stomachs. For water, she kept to the iron-rich drops that fell from the ceiling in steady rhythm, that being the only measure of time. She wandered deeper and deeper, aimless, needy. Once she passed a carved wooden door, half open, shelves of books beyond, but she ignored it for none would satisfy her need. Another time she passed an echoing hall, carved, smooth, covered in dust and stained in water, but it was ignored too.

Feeling and sensing her way by the echoes of her hooves, her ears swivelling to try and do what they could, but more often her scratched and dirty hands finding the wall she almost hit, or her hooves the edge she almost walked over. Finding only the bare minimums that she needed, and maybe a little bit more to allow a bit of healing. Away from the streams, away into the blackness.

Days and days and days later, she saw light.

It was a dim light, faint, yellow, yet painful to her long adjusted dark vision, even though there was never anything to see. In her mindless hunger she didn't ask, just crept further and further into the light. Sulphurous fumes from deep beneath the earth crept along the ground at her hooves, smelling of age, of anger, of mystery. There was a woman-- human-- old beyond old.

And there was food. Somehow there were sacks of grain down here in the forgotten stygian depths. That which controlled her body ran forward, and shoved her muzzle into the open sack, and gorged. Gorged on the rich energy filled grain that the body so ''very'' desperately needed.

And then, full, she slept a deep, restful, healing sleep.

----

A voice spoke, old beyond imagining, ancient beyond history:

<poem>''The One who sleeps,''
''who needed long''
''Now doth awake.''</poem>

Yvarra leapt behind a stalagmite, drawing a dagger ready to throw even before she realized who was speaking. The ''Sword of Songs'' was silent, and that alone kept Yvarra from throwing towards the sound.

Silence.

<poem>''Fear not thou who art foretold''
''The food is for your, our need''</poem>

Cud shoved its way up into Yvarra's dry mouth, and she chewed quickly, far faster than she should. But her other stomachs rumbled angrily, greedily. A dagger at the ready, she looked around.

It was a large chamber, unshaped by human hands. A jagged crack opened up into the depths, a dim red glow illuminating the yellow and green fumes that bubbled out of it like heavy nightmare from a cursed cauldron. From a thin crack in the wall, a greenish-orange flame burned, wavering and hissing, fed by some gas generated somewhere far, ''far'' below. A pool of bubbling mud and clay, stained red and orange and yellow from the rocks all around hissed and gurgled, its stench fading beneath that coming from the volcanic vent, even though it smelled so sweet in comparison.

And, crouched there, looking at her through pale white blind orbs, was a woman. Human. Her skin was wrinkled, ancient leather dusty and cracked with age. Her hair, streaked and stained with mud, both dried and wet, tumbled from her head, over her shoulders, covering her back and front. On her body the mud had dried, cracking into a kaleidoscope of scales, like those of a snake. It could have been the pattern of a master artist glistening and gleaming as jewels, but it was a random pattern of mud that dried and cracked and oozed. The woman's nails were yellow, long and jagged, and she crouched on bare feet, watching her through the blind eyes.

"Who are you? How--?"

<poem>''Does the Sibyl know''?
''She knows all that was''
''She knows all to come''
''She knows you, the one''
''The chosen to save''
''To save all the world''
''From that which sleeps here''</poem>

Yvarra stepped out, unswallowing more cud and chewing as the woman watched. She swallowed, her stomachs going to work greedily. "Are you the Sibyl? What is the Sibyl?"

<poem>''The Sibyl that is''
''Is that which she was''
''That which she will be''
''I am here for you''
''Here for the others''
''Who have all been here''
''Who have yet to be''
''I know what has been''
''I know what can be''
''I know what must be''
''First The One that is''
''Must feed her need here''</poem>

With that she grinned, a toothless ancient grin, and pointed at the bag of grain. If Yvarra hadn't been so desperate she would have asked more. Her body screamed with need, and she had little choice left. Creeping forward, her hooves clicking on the rock as the mud bubbled, she shoved her muzzle into the grain and gorged more until she was again full. Stuffed, she turned and looked at the woman, at this ''Sibyl'' that had not moved. The mud that caked her glistening in the light like jewels, like a snake that watched, stared, hungered.

"Sibyl--" Yvarra licked her lips. "How long have you been here. Who put you here. What-- what am I fighting and-- and what must I do."

<poem>''I have always been''
''I will always be''
''But your time is short''
''The pawns are in play''
''He is now awake''
''For all he hungers''</poem>

<poem>''To the gate you go''
''Your destiny meet''</poem>

<poem>''Alicorn it will''
''Close the shining gate''
''The gate that opens''
''The way that is willed''
''The horn it must stay''
''It's fated to be''
''Hacked from your forehead''
''Left eternal lock''</poem>

<poem>''The other pawn comes''
''Destiny arrives''
''Now go from here, go!''</poem>

"But how do you know! And, if you know, how do you ''know'' I will succeed?"

<poem>''I do not know that''
''It is but one dream''
''One dream of many''
''Most of which are hell''</poem>

<poem>''Take the grain that's here''
''The grain that's for you''
''The grain that waited''
''And go from here, now''!</poem>

The Sibyl's voice rose to a scream, her jagged hand pointed. Below the vent forced rumbled, the flame flickered and grew high, high, towards the ceiling dimly seen in the darkness. The eyes gleamed red, snakes coiled along her skin, or seemed to, hissing at her in rage, in anger.

This was power, old, ancient. Power that filled Yvarra with a terror she'd now known. But, somehow, she knew it was a neutral power. Servant of neither side of law or chaos, but something that just ''was''.

Sheathing her dagger, she grabbed the sack, half empty now, and fled. Her hooves clicked on the stone, and her alicorn glowed a soft warmth to light her way into the darkness. She'd ran only a few hundred steps when the ground shook, rock groaned. Still running, she turned her head to see what was behind her.

A naked wall, wet with moisture.

She stopped, turned, stared. A part of her wanted to search the wall, find its secrets.

But, the sane part of her turned her around, and she started walking through the darkness.

As she walked, she spoke, her voice thin, full of dark terrors, and feeble hopes. "Sword, you know where to go. I don't. And you better show me, because I get the feeling neither of us want to be here."

The ''Sword of Songs'' was silent.

Yvarra snorted, slowed to a walk, and kept going the way she'd chosen.

After all, any way was as good as any other.

----

{{series bar
|previous=[[User:Michael Bard/CSI: Euper|CSI: Euper]]
}}

User:Michael Bard/Into the Depths

2008-08-22T04:38:18Z

Devin: User:Michael Bard/Into the Depths moved to User:Michael Bard/Into the Darkness: author requested

#REDIRECT [[User:Michael Bard/Into the Darkness]]

User:Michael Bard/Into the Darkness

2008-08-22T04:38:18Z

Devin: User:Michael Bard/Into the Depths moved to User:Michael Bard/Into the Darkness: author requested

{{title|name=Into the Depths|author=Michael Bard|user=Michael Bard}}
{{WIP}}
{{float tag|text={{add|'''Author's Notes: New additions will start with a few words of green text.}} Keep in mind that significant revisions are possible, and sometimes necessary. The entire text is therefore in flux.'''}}{{Comment tag}}[[Category:Metamor Keep]]
[[Category:Michael Bard]]
[[Category:Story]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Into the Depths}}
[[Category:Anthropomorphic]][[Category:Cervine]][[Category:Mythical]]
'''October, 707 CR'''

Yvarra was miserable.

Nearly a month. A month of murder. A month of killing her soul night by night. She was afraid of everything now. Never going to inns or taverns, scrounging through the garbage for what she could get, sneaking nibbles of rooftop gardens between her endless search.

She'd tried eating food in the houses of those she-- she--

No! She would ''not'' sugar coat the facts.

The houses of those she'd ''murdered''. She'd subsisted off food there, until the cult began poisoning it. Likely not all of it, but it took more energy to heal herself from the poison than she'd gain trying to find out if any was poisoned.

If they had let anything other than meat uncontaminated.

Her stomachs grumbled and the ''Sword of Songs'' hummed against her back, offering what support it could.

So, here she was. Wet, coated in mud from the rain that had fallen on and off over the last three days. Cold, hungry, miserable.

But, what could she do?

So much of her just wanted to leave. To walk out through the town gates, leave Metamor and never come back.

Only two things kept her here though. Two. Her word -- though that was wearing thin -- and the little girl-- Ansela. Her trusting face, her utter belief that tomorrow would be warm and sunny and safe. That every day that was to come would be warm and sunny and safe.

The trust and hope in her eyes were all that kept Yvarra going.

It was late afternoon, the sun had found a crack between the buildings and into the alley she was hiding in the back of, sleeping during the day, hidden in garbage and abandoned refuse.

The only place she found safe anymore.

As she began stretching, she went through her daily string of curses. Cursing the cult. Cursing what they made her do. Cursing the nameless evil she was supposedly going to stop, though she wasn't doing very well at ''that'' yet. And cursing the so-called ''Lady Tarathana'' that had started her on this doomed quest.

It was getting to the point that, if she ever ''did'' succeed, she'd join a monastery and devote the rest of her life to quiet contemplation of the innocent, and far ''far'' away from the chaos and horror of the world.

Yawning, she unswallowed and chewed on a bit of dry stringy cud -- all that she had yesterday. Tonight-- tonight she'd finally have to devote herself to stealing lots of good ''safe'' food. She couldn't go on without anymore.

Maybe tonight she wouldn't have to k--

" In the name of the Euper Watch, and the Duke of Metamor, you are ordered to surrender to his most blessed and fair justice!"

Head whipping around, Yvarra stared. The sunlight that had found its way to her was gone, blocked by standing figures crowding the edge of the alley, and piling back into the muddy street. How in the Nine Hells--

But-- Duke of Metamor? They weren't the cult-- Weren't they?"

Licking her nostrils, she sniffed. She shoved past the mud and rain and garbage, seeking what information her nose could find. Sweat, leather, oil, a veritable menagerie of animals.

"Stand slowly. Make no sudden moves."

How in Klepnos' name had they snuck up on her. Was she ''that'' tired. Or--

She resumed cursing under her breath. The damn sword had always warned her. But, not this time. Why not this time? Why--

They were the thrice-damned watch.

But-- what could they want with her? She'd left no evidence, her alicorn had cloaked her from magic, she'd been certain no one had seen her--

Take things one step at a time. Keeping her hands in front of her, she slowly stood as a trio of guard approached. One, the leader, was a goat, the other two-- one was a woman, though built like a man, and the other was feline of some sort. Yvarra couldn't tell their colouration as the sun was behind them.

Staying still, except for her breathing, she watched, sucking air in through her nostrils, sorting through scents in the hope of finding something, anything. More and more silhouettes moved into the alley from the street outside.

How damn many watch had they set on her?

She just needed a moment. Just-- In the bathhouse her alicorn had flashed so bright it had momentarily blinded the cultists. But, she hadn't done it! Yet-- Closing her eyes, she ransacked her memories, pulling up that moment. Pulling up ''exactly'' what it had felt like--

The goat began speaking. "In the name of the Duke of Metamor, you are under arrest for mass murder. If you move, you will be killed. If--"

She had it!

Focusing only on that memory, on the memory of the sensation, she shoved her magic out and into her alicorn. And then-- it happened! Eye-searing light filled the alley, and the watch screamed, grabbing their eyes. Yvarra hoped they'd be all right, she didn't want to kill them, didn't want to kill anybody. The cultists had forced her hand, but the watch was just doing their job. She respected them.

But, she had to get out of her!

Leaping up out of the mud, her hooves scrabbled as her hands scratched, and she got a grip on the worn wood. Like a cat-- or more likely a mountain goat-- she was up the wall and on the roofs.

"Where the hells did--" "Everybody all right?" "Where is she?" "On the roof!"

Yvarra didn't have time to hear more, and instead just ran, her hooves clopping loudly on the tiles as she ran for her life. Bolts started hissing up from the ground. They weren't aimed, and their force was somewhat expended, but there were a ''lot'' of them.

She leapt across an alley, turning towards the river. Or river tributary-- she'd never been able to find out for sure.

"She's going to the docks!"

Yes, she was. And-- Nine Hells! Somehow she'd gotten trapped, maybe herded, onto a long row of buildings that led straight to the water, a street on either side. Yvarra was trapped.

She concentrated on running, on keeping her balance on the canted roof. On landing safely when she leapt over another alley. Her breath was coming short and sharp, a pain blossomed in her chest. Her diet was catching up to her, and--

She grabbed her hat to keep it from blowing off.

And-- Could she surrender? Give herself into the Watch's custody? And then be taken to jail, if not tried and executed immediately. Trapped in a locked cell for the Cult to find her and kill her, or poison her, or knock her out -- whatever they wanted.

Maybe the cult had set out evidence for the Watch. Set things up to screw her. But-- She'd used daggers, hadn't been able to recover them. It could be ''any'' of those. Great-- just great--

She tripped over a missing shingle and fell on her chest and chin, having learned from bitter experience to raise her head to keep her alicorn from getting caught. The calls of the watch were falling behind, but it didn't matter. She could see a crowd gathering, probably betting on whether or not she'd escape. Blood pounding in her ears, heart pounding to burst out of her chest, she staggered back onto her hooves. There wasn't much further to go. And then--

What?

The goat's voice called out from behind: "Surrender! You won't-- be harmed-- if you surrender-- peacefully." He was gasping for breath too.

Surrender-- an opportunity to rest. It seemed like such a pleasant dream-- No! She'd ''never'' been caught. It-- it was a matter of ''pride''. And-- safety. Yea, safety.

She reached the end and fell over backwards stopping herself from going over. If the stench of the harbour hadn't been so bad, hadn't been a wall of foulness, she'd not have had enough warning to stop.

But-- what else ''could'' she do? Fight? No! She ''refused'' to kill innocents. Her soul was already blackened enough.

Life had been so much simpler before ''Lady Tarathana'' had drafted her, when she'd only herself to look out for. Now--

Ansela's face drifted in front of her eyes.

No! She would ''not'' let the child down!

It was all the honour she had left.

What to do? What to do?

She forced herself back to her hooves. The Watch wasn't firing -- though she could see they had their crossbows. They could wait her out. After all, where could she go? Where--?

Before her was the harbour, silted, dirty, the water black and oily. It was so bad she almost couldn't smell the runoff from the tanneries. A handful of barges were tied up, loaders had stopped and were looking at her, pointing. Gulls swooped and drifted along the shore, diving down for scraps of fish. A group of-- of ''otters'', human otters, were upstream-- fishing?

Something echoed from behind her and she turned her head enough to see -- more watch, on the roof behind her. The goat leading. His entire front was covered in mud -- he must have fallen. Yvarra ''did'' have to admire his dedication though.

What to do-- what to--?

There was only one choice -- the harbour. She didn't know how to swim, had never learned. But-- Surrendering was signing her death warrant. Given how the Eli-damned cult had tracked her, harassed her, they ''had'' to have infiltrated the guard. Arrange to have the right people guarding her cell, and then enough bolts that even she couldn't heal.

Klepnos but she was ''hungry''!

The goat and the men-- well, the animals-- all arboreal-- a pair of squirrels, a raccoon, the feline. No wonder they'd been able to climb up so well. Must have let down a rope for the captain. If he had needed it.

"Hold-- hold your-- fire!" the goat shouted down before turning to face her. "If you come-- come now-- you will be tried-- in the Duke's court. Just will be done!" the goat called out.

If she lived that long.

She backed up, slowly turning to face her accusers. Her hands itched for the daggers she had left, but she refused. She would ''not'' kill an innocent. If the Watch were innocent-- The ''Sword of Songs'' was silent.

The Watch tensed.

She let herself slump, controlling it more to keep from collapsing completely than to make it look good. How she'd stay afloat she had no clue. But-- it was better than death. And-- and maybe the last shard of her self respect would stay with her. Never captured, even unto death.

Yvarra took a few steps away from the edge of the roof. Who knew how deep the river was, or what kind of sludge she would dive into--

It would be so ''easy'' to just surrender.

Easy to ''give up''.

''That's right. Give up. Betray your task. Let Ansela die''.

He knees shook, her legs shook, and she fought to breathe.

Which was better? Surrender and rest?

No! That had ''never'' been her way.

Right or wrong, she knew then that her decision had been made.

"Why?" the goat asked. "Why kill so-- so many?"

She stared at him. He didn't know. She'd have to go soon. Just a moment longer to catch her breath. Just a moment. "Because-- because if I-- I don't, they'll-- they'll kill us all--"

"Who?"

"Ask-- library--"

Forcing out the last of her strength, Yvarra spun around and ran, ran with all the breath she had left. Which wasn't much. Ran to the edge of the roof and dove off, hands in front of her, tumbling and falling. Sun, cloud, water, building. Crossbow bolts hissed past her, one shoved itself into her back, scrapping off a rib. Grain-- a barge of grain-- down-- down river--

And then she hit the water.

It was like a stone wall, the last of her breath was shoved out of her, she could feel ribs breaking. Without thinking she sucked in another breath, pulling the far liquid into her lungs. Coughing, fighting, her alicorn glowing, her body burning, she sank into the blackness.

Her last act was to grab onto her hat--

----

Yvarra sank, her body hot with fear and terror. But, most of all, over whelming ''failure''. Beaten by the Watch! It was a good thing that she was dead so that she wouldn't have to live it down.

Her hooves sank into the thick slimey ooze at the bottom, and her body sank after it. The mud slid past her, oozing through her fur, her clothes, through the hand still holding her hat. Turning over, she coughed, a last few bubbles of air slowly rising to the surface as the thick liquid settled in her lungs.

''Klepnos, forgive me--''

Maybe she should have tossed the ''Sword of Songs'' on the roof before she'd leapt. Given it to somebody else so that they could fight the damn cult.

She was so very ''very'' tired--

At least she'd gone out in an epic fashion!

Though--

Um--

By the Seven Hells, ''why wasn't she dead''?

For a moment she drifted there, gently pushed along, her hooves and legs sliding through the fine silt. She could feel a coolness all around, over her body, deep insider her. She could feel the water pressing against her. And-- and--

She could feel the warmth trickle from her alicorn into her body.

She wasn't comfortable, but she wasn't in pain either.

Like-- like-- when she'd been in the dye! No tightness in her chest--

That brought up the immediate question: how long could she last like this? Not long, given her fatigue level, and lack of food.

Her stomachs grumbled angrily in agreement.

She coughed. A bit of thin slimy cud worked its way up and into her mouth where she chewed it.

Yvarra couldn't have long. So-- what now? Swim? How? And where?

As if in answer to her unspoken prayer, the ''Sword of Songs'' gently thrummed behind her as the -- current? -- gently pushed her along. The tone wasn't a song, or a warning. It was more an-- an ''envelopment'' of sound. A tone all around her. But-- was it ''stronger'' in one direction? Yes!

Without any skill she paddled, dragged, hopped, staggered, fell and drifted along with the current. She felt the pressure of time, she felt coldness claiming more and more of her body as her final reserves of strength began to fail. The sword's tone rose, higher, stronger; she followed it like a dog blindly following a scent. She shivered, her teeth chattered. The direct changed, the sword focussed above. Above-- There were-- were-- rocks, something. Mindless she climbed, climbed up into the darkness and chill.

Like a drowned rat she used her last strength to drag herself onto the cold slimy rock. Her body shook, exploded as she coughed and gagged out the water and mud and slime. With a rough, desperate gurgle, she sucked in air. Blessed, sweet, air--

{{add|Time passed.}} And endless time of darkness and desperation. Yvarra didn't think, she just shuffled around in the blackness, her nose, or her need, finding bits of fungi, subterranean mosses and mushrooms that she gulped down, desperately filling her empty stomachs. For water, she kept to the iron-rich drops that fell from the ceiling in steady rhythm, that being the only measure of time. She wandered deeper and deeper, aimless, needy. Once she passed a carved wooden door, half open, shelves of books beyond, but she ignored it for none would satisfy her need. Another time she passed an echoing hall, carved, smooth, covered in dust and stained in water, but it was ignored too.

Feeling and sensing her way by the echoes of her hooves, her ears swivelling to try and do what they could, but more often her scratched and dirty hands finding the wall she almost hit, or her hooves the edge she almost walked over. Finding only the bare minimums that she needed, and maybe a little bit more to allow a bit of healing. Away from the streams, away into the blackness.

Days and days and days later, she saw light.

It was a dim light, faint, yellow, yet painful to her long adjusted dark vision, even though there was never anything to see. In her mindless hunger she didn't ask, just crept further and further into the light. Sulphurous fumes from deep beneath the earth crept along the ground at her hooves, smelling of age, of anger, of mystery. There was a woman-- human-- old beyond old.

And there was food. Somehow there were sacks of grain down here in the forgotten stygian depths. That which controlled her body ran forward, and shoved her muzzle into the open sack, and gorged. Gorged on the rich energy filled grain that the body so ''very'' desperately needed.

And then, full, she slept a deep, restful, healing sleep.

----

A voice spoke, old beyond imagining, ancient beyond history:

<poem>''The One who sleeps,''
''who needed long''
''Now doth awake.''</poem>

Yvarra leapt behind a stalagmite, drawing a dagger ready to throw even before she realized who was speaking. The ''Sword of Songs'' was silent, and that alone kept Yvarra from throwing towards the sound.

Silence.

<poem>''Fear not thou who art foretold''
''The food is for your, our need''</poem>

Cud shoved its way up into Yvarra's dry mouth, and she chewed quickly, far faster than she should. But her other stomachs rumbled angrily, greedily. A dagger at the ready, she looked around.

It was a large chamber, unshaped by human hands. A jagged crack opened up into the depths, a dim red glow illuminating the yellow and green fumes that bubbled out of it like heavy nightmare from a cursed cauldron. From a thin crack in the wall, a greenish-orange flame burned, wavering and hissing, fed by some gas generated somewhere far, ''far'' below. A pool of bubbling mud and clay, stained red and orange and yellow from the rocks all around hissed and gurgled, its stench fading beneath that coming from the volcanic vent, even though it smelled so sweet in comparison.

And, crouched there, looking at her through pale white blind orbs, was a woman. Human. Her skin was wrinkled, ancient leather dusty and cracked with age. Her hair, streaked and stained with mud, both dried and wet, tumbled from her head, over her shoulders, covering her back and front. On her body the mud had dried, cracking into a kaleidoscope of scales, like those of a snake. It could have been the pattern of a master artist glistening and gleaming as jewels, but it was a random pattern of mud that dried and cracked and oozed. The woman's nails were yellow, long and jagged, and she crouched on bare feet, watching her through the blind eyes.

"Who are you? How--?"

<poem>''Does the Sibyl know''?
''She knows all that was''
''She knows all to come''
''She knows you, the one''
''The chosen to save''
''To save all the world''
''From that which sleeps here''</poem>

Yvarra stepped out, unswallowing more cud and chewing as the woman watched. She swallowed, her stomachs going to work greedily. "Are you the Sibyl? What is the Sibyl?"

<poem>''The Sibyl that is''
''Is that which she was''
''That which she will be''
''I am here for you''
''Here for the others''
''Who have all been here''
''Who have yet to be''
''I know what has been''
''I know what can be''
''I know what must be''
''First The One that is''
''Must feed her need here''</poem>

With that she grinned, a toothless ancient grin, and pointed at the bag of grain. If Yvarra hadn't been so desperate she would have asked more. Her body screamed with need, and she had little choice left. Creeping forward, her hooves clicking on the rock as the mud bubbled, she shoved her muzzle into the grain and gorged more until she was again full. Stuffed, she turned and looked at the woman, at this ''Sibyl'' that had not moved. The mud that caked her glistening in the light like jewels, like a snake that watched, stared, hungered.

"Sibyl--" Yvarra licked her lips. "How long have you been here. Who put you here. What-- what am I fighting and-- and what must I do."

<poem>''I have always been''
''I will always be''
''But your time is short''
''The pawns are in play''
''He is now awake''
''For all he hungers''</poem>

<poem>''To the gate you go''
''Your destiny meet''</poem>

<poem>''Alicorn it will''
''Close the shining gate''
''The gate that opens''
''The way that is willed''
''The horn it must stay''
''It's fated to be''
''Hacked from your forehead''
''Left eternal lock''</poem>

<poem>''The other pawn comes''
''Destiny arrives''
''Now go from here, go!''</poem>

"But how do you know! And, if you know, how do you ''know'' I will succeed?"

<poem>''I do not know that''
''It is but one dream''
''One dream of many''
''Most of which are hell''</poem>

<poem>''Take the grain that's here''
''The grain that's for you''
''The grain that waited''
''And go from here, now''!</poem>

The Sibyl's voice rose to a scream, her jagged hand pointed. Below the vent forced rumbled, the flame flickered and grew high, high, towards the ceiling dimly seen in the darkness. The eyes gleamed red, snakes coiled along her skin, or seemed to, hissing at her in rage, in anger.

This was power, old, ancient. Power that filled Yvarra with a terror she'd now known. But, somehow, she knew it was a neutral power. Servant of neither side of law or chaos, but something that just ''was''.

Sheathing her dagger, she grabbed the sack, half empty now, and fled. Her hooves clicked on the stone, and her alicorn glowed a soft warmth to light her way into the darkness. She'd ran only a few hundred steps when the ground shook, rock groaned. Still running, she turned her head to see what was behind her.

A naked wall, wet with moisture.

She stopped, turned, stared. A part of her wanted to search the wall, find its secrets.

But, the sane part of her turned her around, and she started walking through the darkness.

As she walked, she spoke, her voice thin, full of dark terrors, and feeble hopes. "Sword, you know where to go. I don't. And you better show me, because I get the feeling neither of us want to be here."

The ''Sword of Songs'' was silent.

Yvarra snorted, slowed to a walk, and kept going the way she'd chosen.

After all, any way was as good as any other.

----

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Main Page

2008-07-23T02:26:15Z

Devin: Added a link to the discussion fora category

'''Shifti''' is a wiki devoted to fiction involving shapeshifting of every variety - animal, anthropomorphic, transgender, age regression, inanimate, you name it. Here people can post stories, reviews, link collections, references, and all manner of other resources.

'''If you wish to post a story please visit [[Help:Posting stories]] for more information.''' The "Upload File" link is not intended for text.

Site news can be accessed via the '''[[Current_events|Current Events]]''' page.

If you're interested in helping to keep Shifti operating, then check out the [[Shifti:Site support|Donations]] page. We are currently accepting all forms of monetary support available.

{| style="width:100%;"
|-
| style="width:50%;" valign="top"|
==Hosted story collections==

*[[:Category:Story|All stories on the site]]
*[[:Category:Author|All authors' userpages]]
*[[:Category:Poem|All poetry on the site]]
*[[Bryan's picks]] - A personal favorites collection sorted by several criteria
*[[ShadowWolfs Pack|ShadowWolf's Pack]] - following [[User:Bryan|Bryan's]] example and posting a personal favorites list
*[[Devins Faves]] - Some personal favourites from the TSA and Shifti
*[[Catprog's Favorites]] - Some favorites of [[User:Catprog|Catprog]] (see [http://catprog.tfcentral.com/story Catprog's site])

<randompages count="5"><h2>Five random stories</h2></randompages>

| style="width:50%;" valign="top" |
==External link collections and reviews==
*[[Book Reviews]]
*[[Story archives]]
*[[Art archives]]
*[[Web comics]]
*[[Movies]]

==Discussion fora==
*[http://lists.integral.org/listinfo/tsa-talk TSA-Talk] mailing list
*[http://lapinia.org/tfnet/ TFNet] IRC network (particularly the [http://lapinia.org/tsa_list/ #tsa_list] and #transformations channels)
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==Events==
*[[TSA-Bash]]. A yearly get together for TSA-Talk and other transformation enthusiasts. Since 1998.

==Writer's School==
'''[[Writer's School]]'''. Interested in picking up the keyboard yourself? Maybe you find yourself staring at the blank page, totally blocked? Here is a collection of essays by various authors. Useful for beginners and seasoned writers alike.
|}
__NOTOC__ __NOEDITSECTION__

Talk:Catprog's Favorites

2008-07-03T08:20:39Z

Devin: *grumble* Must remember to log in first...

==Minor changes==

When you're doing small edits, please click on the "This is a minor edit" check box below the summary field. Thanks. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 12:15, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

You can also edit your user preferences to automatically flag all of your edits as minor, unless you uncheck that box on the edit. And you can edit your preferences to create a java-recent changes list that compresses all recent changes into an (expandable) list. --[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 14:09, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

And, since this is after all a fairly small wiki still whose recent changes aren't hard to keep on top of currently, all this isn't really ''that'' important to worry about if it seems like a big hassle. Content first. :) [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 14:48, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

==Formatting==

This list has bulked up quite nicely. Would you like any assistance with fancying up the formatting? I extended the offer to Devin so I should make the same offer here, though if you prefer a nice simple bullet point list that's perfectly fine. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 13:54, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

:a bit of help would be nice [[User:Catprog|Catprog]] 22:47, 13 June 2008 (EDT)

::Certainly. What sort of layout would you like to see? We could do a simple table, or use templates to get fancy. If you want to reuse the icons I'm using over on Bryan's picks, that's fine too - or if you need new ones not present over there, we could find some free stuff or I could whip something up. What information would you like to present in your list? Some sort of quality rating, a genre or type of TF indicator, a blurb?

::Oh, I just noticed [[User:Catprog/Template:Test]]. Since it isn't in the template namespace, to use it in testing you'll need to include the full name: <nowiki>{{User:Catprog/Template:Test}}</nowiki>. Just so you know. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 16:14, 14 June 2008 (EDT)

:::What about something like on my user page at the moment? [[User:Catprog|Catprog]] 22:22, 14 June 2008 (EDT)

::::Because of the way addresses are generated in the parser what Bryan mentions holds for any use. <nowiki>{{User:Catprog/Template:Test}}</nowiki> is the only way to call it. [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 03:23, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

There, just did a little tinkering. I modified the table slightly to make its layout clearer; the text in the separate columns had no distinguishing separation between them before. Once we've got the contents defined we can look into the visual styling in more detail. The sortability's a very nice feature, I'd use it myself if it didn't mess up the colspanning headers over on Bryan's picks. :) The number of columns could become unwieldy if you're not careful, though. Also, I note that there's no author field. A deliberate choice, or an oversight?

I've also whipped up a very basic template for adding rows in a standardized manner. I inserted one as an example. I used raw HTML in the template because MediaWiki's preprocessor can get complicated sometimes when dealing with templates and tables, this way there's less opportunity for odd results. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 04:06, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

: An oversight on the author field. [[User:Catprog|Catprog]] 10:42, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

::Have you looked at the template's coding, and/or the possibilities for styling the table? I don't want to assume too much about your level of comfort and familiarity with HTML and wiki markup, but on the other hand I know it's annoying to be talked down to (even unintentionally) so I'm not sure what level of guidance you'd like. I could add HTML comments explaining various features, if you like, to help you with modifying the code to change how it looks or to add the author field where you'd like it. And finally, if you've got any requests or suggestions for additional icons, let me know. [[:Category:Icons]] may have a few that you might find useful that aren't currently in use on Bryan's picks, and new ones can be created or uploaded from free sources fairly easily. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 02:17, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

:::Plenty of experience with html (not much on the design side) and little wiki markup. On the icon side I would like one for each type of transformation. Also is it possible to set it up so that I only have to add each story 1 and then a list of the new additions in the last month is shown? Also it doesn't see to want to sort properly on some of the columns (ignoring the difference between template and non-template rows). one example is the favourites column title 6. [[User:Catprog|Catprog]] 00:33, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

::::It appears that the sorting code doesn't deal with non-textual information such as those columns with the icons. I've "tricked" the code into sorting the length column by adding some text with display:none styling, so that it won't be shown to the end user but is still accounted for by the sort function. The other columns could be fixed up in a similar manner.

:::: I see you went with parser functions to set some of the columns with more limited numbers of options, if you're into that sort of thing there's also a #switch statement you might want to look into (never worked much with it myself).

:::: Why not simply add stories to your table in chronological order? If you insert new entries at the top, when people first come to the page the newest entries will be shown first but if they want to sort by some other criterion they can click a sort button.

:::: Finally, that icon request is rather open-ended. :) What types of TFs did you have in mind? I've occasionally poked around looking for a good set of icons to use in the TF type headers for Bryan's picks, but haven't had much luck and don't want to spend the time to create them from scratch simply for a little eye candy. Even the genre icons were a pain to come up with, and I deliberately chose very expansive and fuzzy categories to divide things into. Unless you know of a good set of images under a suitable license I'd recommend using plain old text for the TF type column. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 01:46, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

::::: can I use this one http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:External.svg for the external column?

::::::Certainly, anything on Wikimedia Commons is pretty much by definition available under a free licence. Though Shifti doesn't support SVG so I've uploaded a PNG version: [[:Image:External.png]]. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 15:49, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

The prototype's looking good. Only suggestion that comes to mind offhand now is to add a space between TF types to allow them to break onto separate lines when the screen's too narrow to contain everything on a single line. You might also want to use → (&rarr;)for the arrows, or perhaps upload an arrow image, to make it look more "professional". And of course you may want to fiddle with the table's styling, I threw the padding and vertical rules in there just to make it easier to see where everything was in an earlier version. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 23:36, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

Dude, Im loving the look of the page.

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 04:20, 3 July 2008 (EDT)

Talk:Those Who Triumph Of the Soul

2008-07-01T23:01:05Z

Devin:

I'm going to be frank and this might be seen as rather rude, but don't take it the wrong way:
# A spell-checker is your friend
## don't blindly trust them - they can make very stupid mistakes
# Grammar checkers will catch some mistakes
## there are some in your story, such missing quotes around what appears to be a chunk of speech at the start
# [[Help:Contents|Shifti's Help]] is far from complete but will help with some basic formatting needs.
## The [[Help:Templates|list of generic formatting templates]] has a lot of templates that are meant to be used to automate the more common formatting needs of stories.
## The [[Template:Byline|"Byline" template]] serves to add author information to pages in the "Main" namespace. The [[Template:Title|"title" template]] does the same for pages that are in the "User" namespace. (There is no need to repeat the title if you put a story in the main namespace, but you might want to put your name on it!)
## Categories help people find stories of interest to them on Shifti. <nowiki>[[Category:Story]]</nowiki> is one that all stories should have (unless they are "Adult" and then they need <nowiki>[[Category:Adult]]</nowiki> instead). See [[:Category:Stories by setting|Stories By Setting]] for setting related categories and [[:Category:Stories by TF|Stories by TF]] for transformation related categories. More information available at [[Help:Categorization]].
## If you need help figuring out the categories for a page, you can add [[Template:needs category]] and if you'd like help editing a story, you can add [[Template:Editing requested]]

Other than those bits pointed out above, this story isn't that bad. With some work it'd easily make it into [[ShadowWolfs Pack]]. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 06:16, 1 July 2008 (EDT)

After a second reading while not tired I am left wondering why I even bothered with the helpful comments above. If the spelling and grammatical errors were fixed this story would still be terrible—perhaps as bad as "The Eye of Argon". -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 14:32, 1 July 2008 (EDT)

This offends my artistic senses and then beats them with a two by four in a back alley.

I like it.

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 19:01, 1 July 2008 (EDT)

Rules

2008-06-12T02:11:02Z

Devin: Adding seperators

Rules

2008-06-12T02:09:54Z

Devin: New page: {{Comment tag}} {{byline|author=Devin Hallsworth|user=Devin}} "I'm sorry but I am not authorized to either confirm nor deny the existence of god." General Dove said to the assembled pres...

{{Comment tag}}
{{byline|author=Devin Hallsworth|user=Devin}}

"I'm sorry but I am not authorized to either confirm nor deny the existence of god." General Dove said to the assembled press.

Before he even finished talking every press member in the room was on their feet, shouting out questions and trying to outdo their competitors for volume. The air force general just sighed and leaned against the press rooms podium, saying nothing.

It took a full three minutes of shouting and hand waving before the members of the press finally started to realize the general wasn't saying anything until they all started listening to the ground rules he had laid out at the beginning of the press conference. Most of them sat down quickly and elbowed the ones that hadn't and were still shouting to do the same, they were willing to cooperate now but every hand in the room was still raised.

General Dove smiled and picked one at random from the front row, whose press passes he could read. "Miss Cabezza?"

"Yes, You say you can neither confirm nor deny the existence of god but then does that mean that the experiment was a success? That you have confirmed that question one way or the other?" The older reporter asked.

The General took a second to collect his thoughts. "Yes and... no." The only sound in the room while he thought to himself was the sound of clicking cameras. "The question we were asking with this experiment wasn't so much, does god exist? As it was, Is this a knowable universe?"

"And how did this experiment seek to test this?" A reporter in the back row asked.

The general tried not to fidget. "To be perfectly honest I have no idea. I've read over all the papers and had a fellow who was working on the project try to bring me up to speed before the test but I am out of my depth. I leave any explanations of the test itself to Doctor Cambell who is sitting up here with me. However I did see the results of the test and although I haven't the faintest idea 'how' it happened I do believe that I along with the staff on hand for the test observed what happened correctly."

"What did you observe General?" Dove winced and again tried not to fidget in this strange body. Apparently the test staff were the only ones with any recollection of what had happened, but despite nearly two days of speculation, pouring over test data and interviews with those who didn't realize anything had changed the General was still no closer to knowing how to explain that three days ago everyone on earth had been hairless apes instead of bipedal foxes.

***

Keith set the pencil down and flexed out his wrists. As he stood up to grab a drink from the fridge he considered telling stories in a medium that was less hell on the wrists than drawing a comic. Sure he knew he wouldn't have as many fans as he would if he just wrote stories instead but he'd at least be able to tell the frigging story in less than a year. He shook his head every time he thought about how long certain story lines had been going on in other online comics and given how hard it was to draw out every piece of a story he could understand why.

He grumbled and sat himself down at his drawing desk. He was tempted to just write the idea out instead of putting it in comic form but he was way behind on updates to his online comic anyway and this project was the least he could do considering he owed his fans almost forty updates.

Besides, this way he knew the project would get finished. The idea was interesting enough to him. Basically he was just confronting several characters with the question about how they would act if given direct evidence that the universe wasn't bound by physics but rather by Keith's whims. It was a pretty interesting writing exercise.

Keith grinned guiltily as it also gave him an excuse to draw bipedal foxes. For a moment he sat at his desk and just fantasized about being in Doves position. To just have the mundane word turned on its head and to wind up as something... some...

Keith stared at his writing hand... hoof...

A quick check showed that his body was no longer the human one he had been born with but that of a bipedal mule deer doe. He wasn't sure which felt weirder, fur all over his body or the bizarre change in gender.

He chuckled nervously that he could find a gender change bizarre but no longer being human was something he could wrap his mind around. With a shaking hand... thing, he reached for his coke and as he did his eyes fell on the comic that he had been drawing, his mind taking the idea he had been playing with and applying it to what he was experiencing.

***

Devin grumbled and hit ctrl s. He pushed aside some pop cans and took the laptop off his lap and set it on the cluttered coffee table in front of him. He rubbed his eyes and wondered what he could do with the story.

Quite frankly writing about characters seeing a world bound by something besides observable rules who then curled into the fetal position at the thought that they were more or less just characters in a story was boring no matter which way he tried to spin it.

He gave up and gratuitously threw in a scene in which he transformed into an anthro Giraffe and changed genders for the hell of it before shutting the laptop down to go play some video games. Having gotten what little story there was in the idea out of her system which was really all she had wanted to do.

[[Category:Devin Hallsworth]]
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Transgender]]
[[Category:Comedy]]
[[Category:Fantasy]]

User:Devin

2008-06-12T02:05:31Z

Devin: New story

User talk:Jetfire/Election Fever

2008-05-31T23:32:24Z

Devin:

Enjoying this so far! I like how the TG issues are handled. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 23:57, 27 May 2008 (EDT)

== Note on the FPC and Canadian politics ==

While in our reality there never has been a Furry Party of Canada, we do have our share of joke parties each election which tend to be made fun of each election they run in. (Or parties that are serious, but are seen as fringe/joke parties by everyone else)

Just in the last election in '06, we had groups like:
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Alliance_Environment_Voters_Party_of_Canada Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Canada_%28Marxist-Leninist%29 Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)]] which is different from
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Canada Communist Party of Canada]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana_Party_of_Canada Marijuana Party of Canada ]]

and historically we've had even more far out groups. (See Rhinoceros Party of Canada, Natural Law Party, and most recently NeoRhino.ca )

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 09:41, 30 May 2008 (EDT)

:Note that many of these "joke" parties are not actually intended to be jokes by the people that are running them, they're just a little "out there" or focused on single issues not necessarily of interest to most people. Though some are - I truly miss the Rhinocerous Party, their platform included great ideas such as installing an ocean between Alberta and Saskatchewan (the only two provinces without direct access to a coast). NeoRhino looks promising. :) [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 13:47, 30 May 2008 (EDT)

:They aren't a joke party but it would still be hilarious if the bloc Quebecois ever won a federal election. --[[User:Devin|Devin]] 19:32, 31 May 2008 (EDT)

User talk:Silverhit.92

2008-05-11T23:50:04Z

Devin: sig..

Hi, welcome to shifti.

Are you trying to create a new page to add a story too?

The way you do that is to type

[[

then what you want to name the page and end it with

]]

What you get will be a link to a new page.

[[Help:Posting stories]]

Pages that already have content on them are blue. When you create the link for the first time it will be red to show that there is no content. From there you can just click on the new link and start editing the page.

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 19:50, 11 May 2008 (EDT)

User talk:Silverhit.92

2008-05-11T23:49:37Z

Devin: breif desc of creating new pages

Everything is Kaput!

2008-04-27T01:59:51Z

Devin: adding a category tag

By Devin Hallsworth

I waited for someone to pick up the receiver on the surface. Down here in the underground bunker we were isolated, but under normal circumstances there should have been a guard or the commander standing by the phone up top at all times. Obviously these weren't normal circumstances.

After a couple minutes I was rewarded with the sound of something clunking on the ground. When I heard a donkey try to bray through the other side I figured it must be one of the guardsmen that had been stationed up top.

"Can you speak?" I asked, doubting it if the news reports were to believed. Neither me nor Lang had worked up the guts to go to the surface to check yet. We weren't even supposed to leave our bunker for anything, just wait for an order to come down the chain of command. Only problem with that was that we weren't sure if there was anyone left in a position to give us the order anymore.
I got an angry sounding bray for my troubles.

"Ohhkay. Here's what were going to try instead. Bray once for yes, twice for no." I thought up a quick list to confirm identity. "Are you a Cougar?" Two brays. "Are you a Donkey?" One. "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?" One. "At basic training were you taught how to fire a rifle?" Two brays? I thought it over for a second. "Are you Miss Ivanchuck?" One. "Is your job to assist Captain Reinglad with his administrative duties?" One. "Last Sunday when I asked you out did I suggest a movie?" Two brays. "Go Lakers?" One bray. "When you were still human did I ever tell you that you had the biggest, most luscious pair of breasts?" A pause and then two very angry sounding bray's. I grinned, oh yeah it's her. "Good to hear from you Ma'am. I've got some questions about the situation on the surface, can you get ahold of the Captain?"

***

Luckily for us me and Lang were old pro's at amusing ourselves without the benefit of any sort of mass media entertainment. We actually kept each other occupied for almost two straight days just by singing along to the cheesy pop songs on my iPod.

There's only so many Brittney Spears songs you can sing though before you start to ponder suicide. We weren't exactly provided cyanide pills or pistols down here, I could just imagine some military psychologists sitting in a room somewhere debating on whether they should provide us with something like that in case we survived the end of the world. But there were ways we could end it.

We made a game out of that too. Seeing who could find the most amusingly stupid way for us to kill ourselves first. Lang suggested jumping off a chair and onto our heads to kill ourselves, I one upped him though with the idea of death by drinking all the water we could handle without relieving ourselves until something broke inside. But It was Lang for the win the next day with his hang ourselves by our schlongs idea. Not really practical but it gave me a good laugh when he faked confusion about why it wouldn't work.

We chatted on the phone with the Captain and Miss Ivanchuck off and on. And because they couldn't hang the phone up you could still hear what was going on up there in the breif respites between me and Lang telling each other jokes about nuclear holocausts. Sounded like they were getting along pretty well. I bet she wanted it in the same room as the phone just to taunt me.

We reenacted star wars once. I guess I should say I reenacted star wars once actually. Lang just sat on on his chair and threw food at me, telling me to stop reenacting the crappy prequels and do the original trilogy. I ignored him completly. I think I disgusted him with how well I remembered those movies because he didn't applaud when I finished that last scene with Vader shouting out his anguish over Padme's death. We later picked the food he'd thrown at me off the floor and dusted it off to eat later, then cleaned the place spick and span.

I don't know if it was commie's or aliens or the digital fruit of some computer geeks digital loins that did this to the world but someone tried to contact us a week after we lost touch with our chain of command. They failed the authorization check though so we ignored them and went back to our game of 'Name that STD'.

Whoever had tried to contact us failed four more subsequent authorization checks over the next couple weeks and eventually gave up trying to convince us he was a member of our COC after a few hours of us singing Britney spears songs on the line.

But all things must come to an end as eventually we ran out of food. After contemplating going all Gandhi and deciding it was pointless we told the Captain we were coming up.

***

I have bad allergies. It's why I can stand the canned air of our underground bunker so well. I hate fresh air.

The Captain and Miss Ivanchuck were waiting there for us when we stepped back onto the surface of the world. From the way they wouldn't leave eithers side I wondered if it should be Mrs Reinglad, though I didn't think it mattered. Neither of them could talk in anything but yes or no and judging by the fur creeping out of me and Langs skins we wouldn't be able to ask any questions in a short while anyway.

Not that there was much to ask. They were both donkeys. About the only thing worth learning was that the guards for our quaint little bunker had all turned into various different species and headed west to where the closest town was. The Reinglads seemed content enough to stay where they were.

I took a good look around, slightly disappointed by what I saw. As far as we could tell civilization was done, kaput, adios. And yet it all still looked the same. That farm house was still the same ugly yellow as it had been when I'd last seen it more than a month ago and the barn that wasn't fooling any commie spy by sitting on top of the concrete blast doors of the ICBM silo was still that same generic barn red. Why cant you paint a barn blue or something? Is there a law against barns being any color but red? I thought on that and corrected myself. 'Was' there a law against barns being any color but red?

"I cant believe this." I said to Lang. He looked up from watching his fingers fuse together into cloven hooves for a second.

"Cant believe what?"

I waved a paw that was growing pointy tipped claws at the pristine landscape. "The worlds over and I didn't have a hand in ending it. I signed up to baby sit nukes and instead of dying of radiation poisoning or in the single flash of a bunker piercing nuke I'm probably going to die of old age or eaten by a bear or something boring like that." I lamented. Putting my paws on my hips and staring out accusingly at the world.

I heard Lang try to choke out a comment and looked back to see his face push out in a muzzle. He made a couple attempts to talk before bleating in frustration and miming hanging himself. Cloven hooved hand holding an invisible rope over his head and inhumanly long tongue hanging out and everything.

I thought about it for a second and then felt stuff begin to twist in unnatural ways in my torso and realized I maybe had time for one more sentence. There was no way I was going to let Lang get the last word on me.

"Tempting." I said, considering as long as I dared, looking at the red fur on my paw and finally placing my species. "But I think I'm heading into town. I'm curious about whether that cute waitress at the bar is still as foxy as I remember."

[[Category:Devin Hallsworth]]
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Animal]]
[[Category:Comedy]]

Everything is Kaput!

2008-04-27T01:58:34Z

Devin: Adding an older story

User:Devin

2008-04-27T01:54:39Z

Devin: /* Storys */

{{my stories|category=Devin Hallsworth|name=Devin Hallsworth}}

==About==

Howdy, I stumbled on the [http://tsa.transform.to/| Transformation Story Archive] Back in my last couple years of highschool and prior to that I'd had no major exposure to the furry fandom. I was well aware of transformation as a plot device through numerous werewolf movies but the idea of benevolent and civil rather than snarling and barbaric were creatures was something new and too good to pass up. I've been writing for a couple years now(most of it crap. <.<) and am glad that I stumbled on this community as you guys are a blast to hang out with.

Other than that theres not really a whole lot to talk about besides that I write when I can and used to be hardcore at counterstrike. Oh and I'm from some weird place called Canada, you likely haven't heard of it. ;)

==Storys==

[[Fashionably Late]]

[[Contagious]]

[[Pray for Mercy]]

[[Transient]]

[[Volunteer]]

[[Deer Woman]]

[[Everything is Kaput!]]

==Other Stuff==

[[Devins Faves]]

[[Projects of interest to Devin]]

<comments />

[[Category:Author]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Devin}}

Devins Faves

2008-04-27T01:28:20Z

Devin: /* New Faves */

Howdy. This here is my own version of Bryan and SW's favourite stories list but with a slightly different twist. See this one here includes favourite storys from both shifti ad its direct predecessor the Transformation Story Archive.

Some of you may note some of the stories that appear on shifti also appear on the TSA. This is because some of these stories were written anywhere from five to ten years ago and in that time the author has likely made some edits that they felt necessary for that story, thus I will only link to the version on shifti as this is the one the author most likely wants people to read.

I should make one thing clear, there are only two prerequisites for a story to appear on this list.

# I have to have read it.
# I have to have read it and found it particularly enjoyable.

__TOC__

==Disclaimer==

There are no other criteria involved in the choosing of this list. Which means that I do not filter out stories of poor grammatical quality as I was lucky to have barely passed high school and would only feel hypocritical if I were to do so. That said though If I cant comprehend what is being written the story is not likely to pass number 2 is it?

It also means that objectionable material such as sex and violence are '''not''' filtered. Why? This is because I am hardly the best judge of what could be considered objectionable.

For example gore will almost never even cause me to raise an eyebrow. Why? To put it simply I grew up on a farm and have 'personally' bottle fed baby calves,lambs,one motherless fawn we found wandering around one year and a couple young goats or kids as they're called. I have also 'personally' shot dead all of the above mentioned species and more for the purpose of putting food in the basement freezer for the winter. This stuff just doesn't irk me the same way it does some people.

I would like to point out that '''mindless''' sex and violence turn me off just as much as anyone else so there is at least that small form of content filtering, but that is all you will find in this list. If you read past this brief blurb and encounter what you consider to be objectionable material you have been forewarned and if you skip over this disclaimer and go straight for the storys its your own damn fault. ;)

All that said though I would like to say that each of these stories below passed my above mentioned number 2 rule.

==TSA Stories==

{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/alwaysreadthelabel.html Always Read the Label ]
|author=Jack deMule
|blurb=Horse Manna, reformulated to give your horse a healthier body! Warning: Not for human consumption.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/beastdance.html Beast Dance]
|author=Destrier
|blurb=An African village allows a man and his horse to participate in a centurys old ritual.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/betatest.html Beta Test]
|author=Destrier
|blurb=This photo morphing software is 'Really' powerful.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/birthdaywish.html Birthday Wish]
|author=Jack deMule
|blurb=A man learns the importance of being there for his child.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/coldjudgement.html Cold Judgment]
|author=[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]
|blurb=A pair of civil war Raiders face judgment at the hands of mysterious old woman.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/colt.html Colt]
|author=Jack deMule
|blurb=An old farmer is forced to put down a mare's colt.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/island.html Island]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=A man winds up shipwrecked on a very odd island.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/raindance.html Rain Dance]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=A man investigates a farm that is abandoned save for the horses still living there.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/transmutationtranscontinen.html Transmutation Transcontinental]
|author=[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]
|blurb=To win a race for shapeshifters an old competitor must find a hole in the rules.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/myth/ayshea.html Ayshea]
|author=Wolphin
|blurb= A fishing trip, a woman, and a happy ending. What more can you ask?
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/myth/environmentalprotection.html Environmental Protection]
|author=Equestrian
|blurb=A man takes a job with the EPA and learns who they really are.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/myth/fraternity.html Fraternity]
|author=Equestrian
|blurb=Initiation usually involves things like cross-dressing, petty thievery, and sucklike. Usually.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/furry/anubis.html Anubis]
|author=[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]
|blurb= 1821. A sailing ship at sea. Alone. Isolated. Helpless before events beyond mortal comprehension.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/furry/hollywoodfever.html Hollywood Fever]
|author=Nanomage
|blurb=A writer is like god. But what happens to the characters when god cant make up his mind?
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/furry/muckingabout.html Mucking About]
|author=Wanderer
|blurb=Wandering onto a Muck, a teen gets all mucked up
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/tg/attack.html Attack]
|author=Keith Morrison
|blurb=Attack of the Big-Buxomed Bikinied Bimbos is the full title. Honestly.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/tg/attackpart2.html Attack, Part 2]
|author=Keith Morrison
|blurb=Yep, there was a part two.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/tg/fatlady.html Fat Lady]
|author=Anonymous
|blurb=It's rude to stare, no matter how large a woman is.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/tg/genderbendersanonymous.html Gender Benders Anonymous]
|author=Eddie Glover
|blurb=Like an AA meeting but with a lot more estrogen.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/tg/leaf.html The Leaf]
|author=Liz M
|blurb=A women uses the wishes granted by a golden leaf to get ahead in the corporate world. But the way in which it grants her wishes isn't quite what she or her son expected.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/tg/regenesisindistinguish.html Regenesis, Inc.]
|author=Bill Hart
|blurb=Regenesis Inc. Indistinguishable from magic.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/tg/schoolofchanges.html School of Changes]
|author=Unknown
|blurb=You'll wish you had gone to this school.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/dailygrind.html Daily Grind]
|author=Tal Greywolf
|blurb=Margaret needs a job and an exclusive night club is hiring dancers. However it doesn't turn out to be quite what she expected.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/fleeinggods.html Fleeing Gods]
|author=M.A. Mohanraj
|blurb=Zeus is back but he really would have been much safer back on Olympus.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/fracturedtale.html All That Glitters Does Not Have A High Refractory Index Or: How to fracture a fairy tale]
|author=Anonymous
|blurb=Not the same snow white and the seven dwarfs you are likely familiar with.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/inalienwaters.html In Alien Waters]
|author=Darcy Dallas
|blurb=A man is frozen alive and revived many years in the future.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/specialdelivery.html Special Delivery]
|author=Bob Stein
|blurb=Vinnie trys a dating service at the suggestion of a freind but winds up getting a chance for much more than just a girlfriend.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/transformationvignettes.html Transformation Vignettes]
|author=Mark Gooley
|blurb=A collection of very short transformation oriented storys.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/velveetarabbit.html Velveeta Rabbit]
|author=Jason the Skunk
|blurb=An account of the life of a Velveeta Rabbit.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/misc/whohuntsthehunter.html Who Hunts the Hunter?]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Brian Eirik Coe]]
|blurb=After losing a serial murderer in a crash the cop that had been pursuing him becomes his prey.
}}

===Best of the TSA stories===

The following stories are the best of the best. In my humble opinion as far as what the TSA has to offer.

{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/myth/titanic.html Titanic]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]]
|blurb=The Tsa version is the original but it is also up on shifti at http://shifti.org/Titanic To put it simply the Titanic and the idea of reincarnation is what drives this story.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/myth/unicornclub.html Unicorn Club]
|author=Andy Hollis
|blurb=The person into a unicorn story is not a rare one, but this one sticks out in my mind whenever I think of the idea.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/animal/circesfunhouse.html Circe's Funhouse]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=This is one carnival you don't want to sneak into after hours. Or maybe you do.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/furry/costumevixengolden.html Costume: Vixen, Golden]
|author=Kim Liu
|blurb=Advantechs most popular model. The Vixen, Golden. (CO-V101(G1)) full tactile and sensory feedback Costume.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[http://www.furry.de/tsa/furry/foxkid.html The Fox Kid]
|author=Rodford Edmistion
|blurb=This story is only the iceberg tip of a series about a young teen learning of his fey heritage. If you like what you read here check out the rest of it on stickmakers site http://www.dcr.net/~stickmak/Transformation/FOXKID/index.htmsite.
}}

==Shifti Stories==

This section here is for storys on Shifti.

{{DF row
|title=[[501st]]
|author=[[User:Joysweeper|Joysweeper]]
|blurb= This one is about a legion of storm trooper cosplayers who were present at Xanadu
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Actaeon Reborn]]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]]
|blurb=The classic tale of Actaeon told in the context of a modern day world where gods and magic live side by side with normal people.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:JonBuck/A_Kind_of_Paradise|A Kind of Paradise]]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]]
|blurb=The kicker story for a setting based around the idea that people are changing forms but only other changed can see them.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Cubist/A_Good_Run_of_Luck|A Good Run of Luck]]
|author=[[User:Cubist|Cubist]]
|blurb=A story about a cheetah morph in the blind pig setting with a unique case of scabs.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Eirik/At the End of Time|At the End of Time]]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Eirik]]
|blurb=Something is making all the people around the world disappear and one person has figured out what it is.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Posti/Circe com|Circe.com]]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=Circe is an industrious person these days. She even has a website.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Fish/CYOE| CYOE]]
|author=[[User:Fish|Fish]]
|blurb=Choose your own ending, a project that Fish is working on intermittently that centers around a large number of college age characters and their experiences with a business selling Virtual Reality experiences.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Doe's Hoof]]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]]
|blurb=Camping out in a National Enchanted Forest is not something to take lightly.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Eirik/Change Lady|Change Lady]]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Eirik]]
|blurb=Even other realitys have casinos and one person gets to experience a whole range of them in one night.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Michael Bard/The Bloodstone's Gift|The Bloodstone's Gift]]
|author=[[User:Michael Bard|Michael Bard]]
|blurb=This is a Warhammer 40,000 fanfic that stands up there with what I have read of the warhammer 40,000 novels.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Posti/Baylors Rein|Baylors Rein]]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=This prince is not fit to rule. What will it take to make him realize that?
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Dragon Dancer]]
|author=[[User:Joysweeper|Joysweeper]]
|blurb=A Xanadu story of four people who shared one costume.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Eirik/Care and Feeding|Care and Feeding]]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Eirik]]
|blurb=If you are going to feed the animals at least give them the good stuff.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Echoes]]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]]
|blurb=This is a sequel of sorts to Jons Titanic. If you liked Titanic you cant go wrong with this story.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Escape]]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]]
|blurb=Aliens invade and round up all the humans into camps to control them. Their only mistake is in not paying attention to the animal population.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Michael_Bard/Five_Hours%2C_Thirty-two_Minutes|Five Hours Thirty Two Minutes]]
|author=[[User:Michael Bard|Michael Bard]]
|blurb=One costumer at Xanadu made the mistake of going as a character that couldn't breath the same air as humans.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Forest Life]]
|author=[[User:Bryan|Bryan]]
|blurb=This guy didn't just get off the elevator on the wrong floor, he got off on a completly different world.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Eirik/A Gentle Touch|A Gentle Touch]]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Eirik]]
|blurb=It takes a gentle touch to tame wild horses.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Halloween Cinderella]]
|author=[[User:Bryan|Bryan]]
|blurb=A Cinderella story with a Halloween twist. (What? What do you want from me? A blurb that covers something besides what the title already perfectly conveys about the story? Just read it already. XD)
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Slyfordtrabbit/Eternal_Glory|Eternal Glory]]
|author=[[User:Slyfordtrabbit|Slyford T. Rabbit]]
|blurb=The care bears are out to get you.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Mr.Peaches/Have You Heard About the TFORs?|Have You Heard About the TFORs?]]
|author=[[User:Mr.Peaches|Mr. Peaches]]
|blurb=A very well detailed story of a college students experience with TFORS.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Eirik/Historical Revisionism|Historical Revisionism]]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Eirik]]
|blurb=Changing the dominant species of a planet should have dramatic consequences to history.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:MatthiasRat/A Long-Forgotten Madness|A Long-Forgotten Madness]]
|author=[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]]
|blurb=Twenty years later William has to return to Montana because of his fathers death, but despite how much he might wish it he wont be able to leave until confronting the tragedy that made him leave to begin with.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:ShadowWolf/Little Things|Little Things]]
|author=[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]]
|blurb=An interview style opening story for the Pig and Whistle setting.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Posti/Midsummer|Midsummer]]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=Be careful about ticking off your boss.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Private Thoughts]]
|author=[[user:Bryan|Bryan]]
|blurb=If you had to live a life like what a goldfish in a tank lives, it would likely look a lot like this.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Rachel's Collar]]
|author=[[User:Bryan|Bryan]]
|blurb=Rachel's master is a mage, but what is Rachel herself?
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Eirik/Reality Bites|Reality Bites]]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Eirik]]
|blurb=Nanotech is not for pranks.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Posti/Reindeer games|Reindeer Games]]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=Santa is hiring.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Cubist/Second_Heat|Second Heat]]
|author=[[User:Cubist|Cubist]]
|blurb=According to the Cliff Notes for this story: The Blind Pig Gin Mill acquires a new regular. A puzzle is solved, and the solution creates more puzzles. A lost soul begins finding its way back.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Posti/Simple life|Simple life]]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=All Martin the new Tax assessor wants is a comfortable place to sleep and enough to eat. With some basic work to pay for it.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Michael Bard/Somebody's Watching|Sombody's Watching]]
|author=[[User:Michael Bard|Michael Bard]]
|blurb=The story must go on! No matter how many lives it claims.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Eirik/Swift_of_Foot_and_Hoof|Swift of Hoof and Foot]]
|author=[[User:Eirik|Eirik]]
|blurb=Always memorize the counter spell.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Posti/Totally Pucked|Totally Pucked]]
|author=[[User:Posti|Posti]]
|blurb=Don't mess with the Fae. Seriously, don't.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Taint of Chaos]]
|author=[[User:Bryan|Bryan]]
|blurb=Chaotic magic acts in very strange ways.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:JonBuck/Tall_Tales|Tall Tales]]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|JonBuck]]
|blurb=Noone can see that you've changed, except the other people like you.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Slyfordtrabbit/Tyrst_Tail|Tyrst Tail]]
|author=[[User:Slyfordtrabbit|Slyford T. Rabbit]]
|blurb=I'm not usually a fan of poetry, this I couldn't help but like though.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Unexpected Shore]]
|author=[[User:Bryan|Bryan]]
|blurb=For an alien probe, just communicating with humanity poses an interesting challenge.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:Michael Bard/Whom God Destroys|Whom God Destroys]]
|author=[[User:Michael Bard|Michael Bard]]
|blurb=Old Gods should beware as things change...
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Window of Opportunity]]
|author=[[User:JonBuck|JonBuck]]
|blurb=Being female was the /least/ of her problems!
}}

===New Faves===

An area for stories that I have either just read or found a new interest in. Stories will stay here for roughly a month before getting added to the above list.

{{DF row
|title=[[User:Michael_Bard/Tale_of_a_Tail|Tale of a Tail]] Added Feb 08
|author=[[User:Michael Bard|Michael Bard]]
|blurb=What good is a tail.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:MatthiasRat/MadeAlone|Made Alone]] Added Feb 08
|author=[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]]
|blurb=Changing can be bad enough, being alone in changing can be worse.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[User:MatthiasRat/Bathing_Alone|Bathing Alone]] Added Feb 08
|author=[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]]
|blurb=Sequel to Made Alone.
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[At_the_Ranch_Pt_1/9|At the Ranch]] Added Feb 08
|author=[[User:FelixSagittarius|Felix Sagittarius]]
|blurb=Take a trip to a VERY different Ranch!
}}
{{DF row
|title=[[Naturalization]] Added Feb 08
|author=[[User:Bryan|Bryan]]
|blurb=High Energy Particle Physics and Satyrs: What do they have in common?
}}

Note that I said 'roughly' a month before being updated. >.>

Haven't been reading as much as I would like recently. Thus there will be a lack of updates to this page for the near future.

User talk:Desiring change

2008-04-27T00:55:22Z

Devin: A question

I am tempted to delete this page for being pointless but I thought I would ask first if there is a policy on posts that don't seem to have any worth to shifti?

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 20:55, 26 April 2008 (EDT)

Deer Woman

2008-04-18T23:59:58Z

Devin: New story

This story is based off what I have read of a Cherokee myth of a creature called the 'Deer woman' A sort of temptress of young foolhardy men that would lure them to their doom.

Deer Woman

By Devin Hallsworth

Daughter stomped a hoof down on the ground. "Mother, NO!" She exclaimed. Her mother still refused to become a woman and talk to her, instead staying as a deer and just allowing her displeasure to show through her body.

Older kin could communicate quite clearly through just body posture but she was still young and her mothers unwillingness to talk to her and actually explain anything with words infuriated her.

That was it, she was done with her. No more trying to reason, no more patience, no more hoping that her mother or grandmother had any bigger plans than sitting back and waiting for the white man to consume the whole world in his belly.

She dropped back onto all fours and walked away. Her walk turned to a run, just to get the pent up frustration she had been hoping to direct at her mother out of her. She was surprised when a shape darted in front of her and screeched to a halt, hooves digging up the floor of the forest.

"Daughter..." Her mother shifted up onto her back legs like a woman. She rubbed her hands against her bare skinned arms as her daughter did the same. Mother bit her lip and thought hard before saying. "We cannot help the Cherokee against the white man. That was never our role in this world. We helped them to protect their culture, we were supposed to save them from 'themselves'." She sighed at the hardened expression on her Daughters face. The argument was already lost. "We tempt those who care more about a beautiful womans body than their family and tribe. We tempt them and lead them to their doom so that the tribe will learn from their mistakes and make wise choices when they build their families."

Mother and Daughter stared at each other. Finally daughter asked. "Anything else?" Her eyes set hard and cold against her Mother. "Your beliefs are meaningless if the Cherokee are wiped out by the white man. Half their number have already died from the disease brought to this land."

Mother surprised her daughter by nodding. "Yes. You are right. The days of the Cherokee are numbered." Her Mother looked her back just as hard as she been getting. "And what of it? When the sun rises a hundred winters from now the European farmers will have replaced the Cherokee hunters. What business is it of ours?"

Daughter reeled back, her eyes blinking in surprise at seeing her mother this way. "Did we care for the Cherokee like our fawns? No. We cared that they not wind up as wretched disgraces of men who would let evil into their hearts and take without giving back from our forests. If we truly cared we would have shown them how to feast on the grass and the leaves or how to run swifter on all four hooves then any man could run on two legs."

"But.. but the Europeans WILL take without giving back!" Daughter sputtered, this wasn't something she had been prepared to argue when she had thought the encounter over in her mind.

"Yes. But even they can only take so much. They still need wood for their homes and thus they will not burn clear all the forests of the world. We will survive easily as long as there is grass to eat and trees to hide in." Mother sighed, plucking a handful of leaves off a branch and looking as though she wanted something to quiet her stomach. Or maybe that was some other expression on her face, her Daughter thought.

"But the Cherokee will die." She stated flatly.

Mother nodded. "The armies and spears of Europe are stronger and their mouths cannot help but water at the sight of all this land. The Rabbit will be eaten by the Fox who will sate the Wolfs hunger who will die at the Cougars claw who will be hunted by the White Man who will die of a wasting disease." Mother walked past her daughter. "But long after the Cherokee are gone the deer and the crow and all those who are smarter or more numerous than the white man will still be here. The cold winter cares not if you didn't store up enough fat to keep from starving."

She shook her head at her mother. "All the more reason that we cant just let the Cherokee waste away. When it is only the white man will we then try to guide their culture the way we guided the Cherokee? I cant barely understand half the words they have, let alone the concepts behind them."

Her Mother turned back to look at her. A very sad expression on her face as she stared at her daughter for a long time. Finally her face hardened against all emotion and she turned her back on her child. "Foolish, blind daughter of mine." She walked off into the forest, her words echoing back over her shoulder. "Cant you see that some ones hand already guides the white men?"

And with that her mother disappeared into the forest, just a faint shape of a deer fading out of sight through the trees.

The daughter thought hard about this, but it only confirmed her suspicions of her mothers cowardice. The idea that the White mens god actually existed was ridiculous. Why would a god who supposedly created the white man to rule even bother with creating all the other peoples of the world? The idea of one people being meant to rule everything would make sense if they were the deer or the rabbit, alone in an endless forest of trees and grass's.

She shrugged away the thought and fell down onto all four legs. She walked in the opposite direction of her mother. Out of the forest and towards the white mans land.

***

"I'm afraid I must pass on the next dance, I need to get myself some air." The Daughter explained curtly to the rather barrel shaped gentleman.

"Oh.. er very well. Good night to you Miss Harcott." He bowed and took his leave. Jess Harcott sighed once he was out of sight and made her way out of the manors crowded ball room to its veranda. She looked around and found herself alone. She flopped wearily onto a wooden bench. After looking once more and straining her ears for any sound of a person she might have missed she pulled her gown up and brought her leg up so that she could rub at her left hoof. It was still sore from that stupid stupid fall she had taken yesterday. Luckily no one had been around to see that, or take concern from her ensuing limp back to her estate. Her two hooves where a woman would have feet were the only things she couldn't change, the only thing that threatened to give her away for what she was. Luckily she had learned to walk well enough while wearing a low hanging gown, yesterday had just been a freak accident.

She slapped the hoof back on the wood and quickly brushed her gown down when she heard footsteps approaching. She tried to act casual but she her muscles were all just knots of anxiety. Why had she agreed to come to this asinine social function anyway?

Jess looked up at the man who was looking at her quizzically and felt her heart skip a beat for the second time in the last ten seconds. She waved, trying not to feel meek and the brown haired gentleman smiled and waved back.

Right, she thought to herself as she grinned. Brent Fulke. The youngest well made merchant and former militia man to step off the boat in all the time she had been living in Jamestown. She sheepishly diverted her gaze when she realized she had been staring at him without realizing he had been staring back at her.

Now she felt a right proper fool. Excellent job on the first impression there, she chided herself mentally.

It was thus quite a surprise when she felt the bench creak as he sat down next to her. Still smiling.

"Hello, my name is Brent Fulke. Might I have the pleasure of yours?" He asked courteously.

Despite her now rapidly disappearing anxiety and her well learned social manners she couldn't help but chuckle. "I 'know' who you are. Every young unwed woman in a twenty miles knows who you are."

Brent for his part smiled even wider. "And I believe I know who you are. You would be the former Mistress Harcott. Widow of the late Aidan Harcott?"

Jess blinked for a moment, until she realized Brent was a merchant and had likely had dealings with people who had business with her late husband. She nodded. "He passed away last year while on a hunting trip." She had gotten much better at explaining the cause of death with a straight face. "A deer knocked him down and kicked him to death."

"Ahh, unfortunate for him. Potentially a blessing for me." He said cheerfully. Jess was quite taken aback at this statement. "I'm going to make no secret of this. I have heard much of you and I believe I may be madly in love with you. You have your husbands wealth, a body that is quite plainly divine to witness and from what I have heard you have an .." He smirked for a moment and leaned back, his voice taking on an artificial haughtiness. "An unhealthy interest in intellectual pursuits totally besides the proper use of women in raising heirs."

Jess laughed. "Reverend Phelps would box your ears in if he heard you reciting him in that tone of voice."

"Yes, I've met his wife though and obviously his standards don't go too far beyond being able to push out a child." Brent chuckled, then his face drew itself a bit more seriously, though not so much that he could wipe that grin off his face. "Unfortunately for me... I could not bear to raise a child that had inherited his mothers stupidity or lack of beauty."

Jess felt her eyes light up. Long ago, when the deer women had been the temptresses of foolhardy young Cherokee men who thought beauty was more important than ability to raise a family a light punishment might have been considered to simply bear the man a child and then disappear back into the forest one night with his son. Jess knew she had to have some Cherokee blood in her alongside the deer.

She had better ideas though. Idea's that had been made impractical by her former husbands utter lack of ambition but would work perfectly for managing this wealthy young man. She spent much of the rest of that night out on the veranda with him, chatting about anything that seemed of consequence and sizing him up just as much as he was sizing her up.

***

If the events later that night were any indication she was already well on her way to slaving Brent to his animal desire and lust. She grinned as she wrapped her arms around him, at this rate he would be accepting orders from her without a hint of self determination by the end of the month. Of course she would have to leave some measure of his will to him that he didn't seem like an invalid to his fellow merchants. But for all intents and purposes his wealth and influence were now hers.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him deeper into her. She laughed in between catching her breath at the sight she got over his shoulders of her deer hooves. All it would have taken him to break her spell would have been for him to look down and catch sight of them.

Not that she had given him even one chance to do that. Her gown had fallen off her to rest on the floor, covering her feet but nothing else while she beckoned him to step forward into her embrace.

She lay there after he had finished the deed and collapsed on her, using enough of his strength to keep from squishing her more delicate frame. They stared into each others eyes for a minute before they both laughed. She had to admit that although the number of men she had bedded was not large and the number of bucks none existent he was definetly the most virile male she had even heard of, let alone met. Almost like something out of those old greek storys.

For his part he also seemed suitably impressed. "You deer women are everything I've heard."

She grinned at the compliment and pulled him into a kiss, until she felt the afterglow of pleasure completely annihilated by stark fear. She pulled her head away and made a futile attempt to flee as fast as she could, but his hands pinned her shoulders as well as he had pinned her hips.

"Deer women?" She said after calming a moment. Though it sounded lame even in her ears. She winced in apology at the bald faced lie.

Brent was the only one still grinning. He nodded. "I heard about you from a very very distant ancestor of my kind that I met when I first came to this land. I believe you would know him as a skin walker. Though in my homeland of Europe we are more commonly known as Lycanthropes."

Jess shuddered as she tried to push Brent away from her, she was powerless against his strength though. He leaned into and kissed her neck and shoulder while her mind raced to try and make sense of what he had said. She honestly had never heard of skin walkers before, then again she had been pretty young when she had left the forest. Had her mother just not gotten around to teaching her about them?

Or maybe her mother had ... grown tired with her foolish young daughter and thought it best for her to learn herself.

Brent pulled his head back up to stare down at her and it was all Jess could do not to scream or faint. The muzzle of a wolf now stared back at her, she could feel the fur of one pressing against her bare flesh everywhere he touched her as well. She cried and tried to look even smaller then the position she was in already did. She looked away and waited for it to be over.

She felt a clawed hand pull her chin back to look at him. "Don't be a fool like that Jess. I know your smarter than that." Despite the muzzle she thought she could still see a hint of a muzzle. "Nothings changed. If I had wanted a meal I would have gone and killed one of the deer that lived out in the forest."

She tried to sort through a haze of emotions, but the fear was rapidly diminishing. "What... What are you? You're not a man..." She pondered out loud.

Brent shook his head. The smile was clear in his tone of voice if not his canine mouth. "Not a man but neither a wolf. Long ago it was clearly us or them in Europe. The wolves that couldn't adapt died and were replaced by flocks of sheep and other domesticated animals." He licked her face playfully and despite herself Jess was not repulsed. "I sought you out. Not because of your wealth, beauty or intelligence. I sought you out because you are a wild animal that has gained all of these for the same goal that my kind has."

As Jess thought of it she realized she hadn't gone very far in her pondering beyond how to gain power over man. In her gut she had always known her ultimate aim but now she knew it in her mind as well. And she had even met another with whom she could strive to achieve it.

"They are a species of hunters that are too good at what they do." She sounded the idea out. Brent laughed and nodded, seeming thrilled that she was accepting their common goal.

"And in order for them to reach their full potential, it will be up to your people and mine to domesticate the wild human."

End