With her shadowy secret now bearing a single solicitor, Vira takes it upon herself to indulge Sebastian on just what she is capable of. However, Vira may have a bit of more of a penchant for power than he'd thought.

A story from me? One shorter than 20 pages? Poppycock.

The terrible  raddaraem poked at me to write something short and sweet to intersperse my longer stuff. There were many bluhs. Unfortunately, I bend easily, and what resulted was a return to a duo he wrote up for me here. The original intent was to keep it under a thousand words, but I ended up having too much fun with it so this is what you get instead! No complaining.


The characters and goofy premise were courtesy of the writerly Reep. Okay, sorta myself too but not all that much. Go send him praise and, as always, enjoy!


----“Oh, now Sebastian...” the raccoon said, voice lingering with just a hint of disappointment. “Our little haunt on a hummock here is the closest thing one gets to a sanctuary. What’s the matter?”

“I… just sometimes think, you know?” The squirrel fidgeted quite predictably, pressing both sets of fingers against each other like rubber bands. He paused, shuffling his paws against the carpeted floor supporting the sofa the two sat upon side-by-side. “About the sun-caked hill we used to fawn and relax after my training. Not that I don’t feel welcome here,” he added hastily.

Sebastian stole a glance at the room, filled with odd geometries and fine, he might say decadent furniture. Their shadows stretched at varying lengths across the dim chamber and seemed only a few hours away from blending into the floor. He wasn’t usually this jittery, but something about it all rubbed him an odd angle.

“Let me stake a guess,” Vira hummed, grey facefur raising amusedly with half her brow. Her tone became a songbird’s lilt in about as much time as it took to wrap her arms around him in an affectionate snuggle, grey muzzle burying into his brown chest. “You’re scared, aren’t you? At least a little bit.”

Ever laconic, Vira’s bluntness had and always would startle him. The usual chill her voice carried as it coursed over his shoulders didn’t help. “W-what? No, of course not, not scared! I mean… scared isn’t the word I would use…” He peered down, puffing a sigh at the raccoon face half-submerged in torso fluff.

“It’s the one I’m using. Unless you’d prefer nervous?” Vira trilled more with curiosity than any form of cruelty. Her eyes cast dim spotlights on him and practically stared into his soul with an unreadable expression. “You aren’t telling me you miss lounging upon that boring old hill after being the one to suggest it was so boring in the first place, are you?”

Sebastian puffed his cheek. Oof, her words were just pin-pointed and hit precisely the right spots.

“I need time to think of how to respond to that,” he admitted. Wait, no that wouldn’t do. Steeling his courage, he spoke back up. “Guh… I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant at all. I don’t think our old lumpy tree is any better than this. It’s just that—you understand, I think,” he said again, returning to silence.

A hand of silvery grey lifted up and caressed his cheek, bringing a semblance of redness that permeated his fur. “Understand what? Sebastian, you can be as honest with me as you like. You don’t need to pretend that you need to hide things, since I can tell you’re not doing it for the sake of your dignity or honor or whatever else those thick-headed tin cans in the Knighthood try to teach you. You know I’ll understand, so long as you tell me.”

Oh sure, it was easy to say. Very easy. To acknowledge? Not as much. Even for her, it seemed… though she was a trifle deviant, socially speaking. “I... I concede. Maybe I am a bit scared. Not of silly things like shadow puppetry, just—nobody knows much about your family, especially not me. That and, well, for lack of better words,” he bit his tongue before spitting out the last of his thoughts, “This is somewhat… you know. Umm, my first time in your house.”

Vira’s brow settled. Ah, a bit of discomfort? That wasn’t too difficult to purge. Indecision was a fickle maiden that had left its mark even in the raccoon, who mused that outsiders were not allowed in the formal abode at all. Today, however, branded an exception during which she could invite Sebastian as close as her heart would allow, thanks in no small part to a brief pilgrimage by her parents during which inherited the household.

“You needn’t be shy. I’ve said it at least once before,” Vira said, sidling up to him. She left a peck on one of his large, rounded ears, which transitioned into a series of disarming nibbles.

“Argh. You’re just saying that because you’re usually the shy one, aren’t you?” Sebastian said with an inhibited splay of his ears. The same motion pried Vira off with an audible oof.

“Ah… heh,” Vira let her arm snake back across his shoulders and deposit itself onto her lap. “Maybe I was. I like to think we’re past those times though. There’s no room for superstition amongst each other—not to mention it would be a little difficult to label it ‘superstition’ when you’re in the house of the bogeycoon herself.” Vira waved her arms and moaned ineffectively spooky noises.

“If that’s the case, then maybe you wouldn’t mind telling me a bit more about your powers?” The rodent allowed his tail to swish, only once. His eyes bulged with curiosity as they sifted over Vira. “Your ‘magic’ is called umbraturgey, if I remember right. Shadow stuff.”

Vira smiled. “I’d be more than happy to indulge such a request. My ‘shadow stuff’ abides by a set of laws intangible to us mortals, and as such, I think you’ll find it can do a number of things.” Thoughts teased just behind her closed eyelids. “Perhaps a demonstration would be in order?”

“Huh?” The squirrel found himself pushing his heart back down his throat. Magic… so rare! How exciting! “Oh, yes, I’d love that!”

Vira paused and shifted in her seat, tush and tail alike rubbing against the fine cushion threads. Her eyes flicked up and down; she wasn’t fully sure of whether or not to proceed. The sun’s rays drop-forged her vision in waves of gold and bronze, dipping lower and lower over the horizon. Shadows along the wood floor lurked like roaches and only lengthened with the slow extinguish of the celestial body.

“Fair warning, I do not get many opportunities to exercise these talents of mine. It’s usually thrust upon me via the cycle of night and day, when they pounce at nightfall. You are probably well aware of that,” she admitted courteously, recalling the evening of her spilled secret. “I may get a little caught uuuuff!”

Vira gasped as her affection was returned in full in the form of a tight hug. M-meep, those broad shoulders and, that wide, fluffy torso. “I’ll have none of that. I’m not worried, and don’t you think or a second that I would be!”

“Ah, d-delightful!” Vira swallowed. Oogh, how he knew just what to say. “Then, ah… shall we begin with a basic rule or two?” she asked hopefully. The raccoon rose to a stand with arm outstretched, which Sebastian took with meek thanks. Shortly after, she took a glance about the room—very, very thoughtfully.

Oh yes. All bets were off now that he gave the green light. She could afford to show off… maybe she would do that. “We may need some room,” Vira said.

“Oh? Oh! Right, to make an incantation, right?”

Another grin bordered this time on the wicked. “Two rights don’t make a wrong, especially in the same sentence, so surely that’s a grand idea.”

“Right—I mean sure—I mean yeah, of course.” He couldn’t help the lightest of embarrassed blushes. Sebastian inched toward the glass table, barren of all things save a stationary chime that he found himself driving back the urge to prod with his fingers, and pushed with all his squirrely might until it was wedged up against the wall, leaving a good wide space between the collective decorum.

The dancing shadows embraced their room to stretch and roam. It seemed almost an invitation to a forbidden ball—no, a celebration that had already begun, with serpentine shadows practically loosening from their physical tethers and sliding beneath the sofa and around Sebastian’s feet. What they were celebrating, however, remained to be seen—

“Shall we begin with the lesson? Rule number one.” Sebastian gasped as he felt a metaphysical pull, courtesy of Vira, as his shadow—and consequently, he—practically plummeted facefirst into her chest. “What you’ll find while hanging around me, dear, is that a shadow is not a reflection of oneself. No, no—that honor belongs to their fuzzy little vessels.” She poked the taut surface of his tummy, forcing a squeak.

“U-um, Vira?—” Sebastian suddenly had second thoughts. He was standing on very, very sharp and very, very metaphorical pins and needles.

She went on, her songbird voice dumping away its heretofore slowness and caution. “Little fleshy anchors that keep those shadows from slipping away into the Abyss from which they sprung.” She flourished her hand as she strolled in a circle, seemingly engrossed in her own speech. As she did so, flecks of darkness whittled away from beneath Sebastian’s feet and bolstered her own penumbra. “And oh, the ways they can be manipulated, forcing their mortal counterparts to experience change…”

“Wait—what? You’re going to practice on me?” And immediately was he shushed by the clubbing of her alternating black-and-white tail across his face with an audible whuff. Weird that it was so large though.

“Don’t think of it that way. Think little of it save the demonstration you so wanted. A caveat for the brave Sir Sebastian, however: perhaps while we’re at it, we can get to a little bit of that intimacy that we’ve had to stifle for so very long?”

The wayward raccoon finger lifted, only for a second one to find its way trailing up the shuddering squirrel’s fuzzy torso, then neck, then chin, delighting in what disquiet it could utterly demolish with just a touch. With a shiver he felt a piece of his immortal fibers slither away from his body out from the inky pool of his own shadow, and watched it coil down the length of Vira’s finger like a stygian serpent.

Oh, her eyes, those spheres of muted colors that could command an army with just a glance—they were almost enough to distract him from the fact that as a chunk of his shadow abandoned its mortal dogma, so too did something from his physical being. It didn’t take much thought to realize it was his size, where at the very same moment he noted the tip of his nose was no longer level with her neck.

He craned his own, partly in anxiousness and partly at the fact that he had to at this point. “V-Vira, your parents won’t be—”

“Home.” Vira finished, velvet lips curling into a soft grin. “And when a shadow is beckoned, its owner must follow suit, like a valet before its dominion.”

Her loom was exacerbated with surprising elegance as she leaned down, canopies of silky ebony hair hanging down to buffet his face before a wet smooch did the job better—where her lips left, a hollow funnel of shadows followed the passionate kiss into her maw.

The ground rumbled. Sebastian’s words couldn’t escape his mouth; shut tight as the shadows at his feet dispersed, only to converge as an inky mass around Vira herself. Who, predictably, shot up a few feet in height, thick raccoon paws eclipsing the height and width of Sebastian’s torso. Then another few. And again.

The raccoon bulged and bolstered in all dimensions at a jittery pace, her feminine form gathering wanton bulk in short bursts. All while the squirrel looked frantically about his shrinking-ness, mass sapped away from him as a stream of darkness. The smaller he got, the more she grew!

A voice most deep and husky rumbled throughout the house’s frail eaves. Greedily slurping down her prized shades with happy urfs, she wedged herself between all the furniture laid in the chamber, shoving aside what didn’t fit and smooshing everything else beneath her couch-sized rear. Legs twice the width of tree trunks huddled to her chest, hints of a thick tongue cresting over her hungry lips.

Down, down Sebastian went, umbral wavecrests shockwaving from his being and absorbing into Vira’s endless hunger. Dwindling past the wall-mounted paintings, then the concave lampshade, and before long the cozy sofa they had just been cuddling on. Though now he’d be remiss not to note his entire field of view eclipsed by a single one of her generously-sized toepads as it craned just over him, shuffling and squeezing against another.

“So now you know,” Vira said sweetly, minty words rattling his skeleton. “Now you know what kind of power I truly possess as descendant to Frimelda, Devourer of the Dark... not that you were much of a stranger to it, dearest. It’s not too much, is it Sebastian?”

A thunderous giggle shook his entire world. And that world only got bigger, wider, deeper in all dimensions, until a single leathery padded digit, so riddled with small creases and cracks that now dwarfed canyons, swallowed up the sky. Peaks and valleys of fur and flesh rippled overhead as the lone toe tensed and scrunched, sending hot waves billowing toward him.

“I-is there a limit to this?!” Sebastian cried out with a squeak that hit unparalleled octaves. Pushed into the toe’s impossible sumptuousness he nearly disappeared into one of the innumerable depressions of leathered flesh—at least before the gargantuan foot shifted, dropping him miles back onto the wooden floor and before Vira’s gaze.

“Aww, just listen to you! Er, ahem I mean,” she deepened her voice again despite a brief squeal of delight. “The shadow cannot dissipate with its owner; they are bound by a tether. So eventually, perhaps…”

Vira loomed close and mooshed a simply cosmic set of lips against his tiny form. His wriggling speck of a shape was promptly buried in an avalanche of velvety lip canyons for a smooch he was not like to forget. Then, plucking him free between her padded fingertips, she cast her infinite gaze over her infinitesimal love.

“But I won’t stop here, not unless you so request. Stretching these sorcerous muscles feels… wonderful. And failing that, who are you to turn down an adventure to find out how far it will go? You are the bravest little squirrel in the squiredom, after all.”----