Off and away off the beaten path, a flustered fox struggles to master a newfound spell forcefully thrust upon him. Tyridia, timid and tired of being goaded and looked down upon by his kitsune companion, Xis, musters up the courage to do the impossible. Render his illusions a reality.

UPDATE: This story has a sequel now! Check out the link below to see!
Sizable Reservations

Let's leave the description shore and sweet, shall we? This was basically written as primarily as a belated birthday present to my best buddy  Mannoth! It's also a little indulgent on my end too, sure, but it's the thought that counts! Hope you enjoy what we cooked up together. :3

Also here's hoping all the words actually fit into the comment section. Icon by  tierafoxglove

---

Illicit Illusions

By: RaddaRaem

“Agitated as I am Tyridia, I must confess. Never did I believe you possessed the cranial capacity to overthink a task.” Lips curled up into something other than a snarl, Xis’s cheeks strained as he exercised such rarely used facial expressions. A smug smile crept up along the kitsune’s muzzle while his eyelids draped down over his concentric crimson peepers. “Granted, when one sets their standards within the very bedrock upon which we stand I suppose it does become ever more difficult to disappoint.” The feral fox took to circling round the source of his disdain. Tufts of grass, interspersed with wild flowers tall enough to scrape against the underside of his fluffy chest, bent beneath the quiet crunch of Xis’ paws.

Hands running through the orange fur atop his head, Tyridia’s padded fingers gripped at the subtle divots and curves that ran along his skull. The fox’s nostrils flared while his green eyes stared blankly at the blades of grass that brushed against his sandaled feet. “I. Mmph.” The summoner’s mind raced. Implications great and terrible popped into his head faster than he could process them. “Xis this… this is almost too much to take in!”

A familiar snarl graced the four-tailed vulpine’s visage once more. Black lips parted to reveal pointed ivory teeth nestled against one another. “No. It is not. Tyridia, I intended this as an outreach.” Those alabaster tails of his, lined with red rings of fur, swished to and fro. “To allow you to grasp what I am well and truly capable of at my zenith. To show you why and where my frustrations stem from. I was awe-inspiring once, I can be utterly resplendent yet again, but... I am not. For which, I have you to thank. My power crippled and shackled to your incompetence.” The feral kitsune’s clawed toes clenched. Dirt and plant matter collected beneath Xis’s sharpened nails. “The potential that I can offer you ought to be inducement enough to, at the very least, attempt to be more than you woefully are.”

Tyridia’s padded toes scrunched against his footwear’s leather soles that radiated with warmth. Untamed wild grasses and pockets of petals stretched out to horizon where the beaten path back home lay just out of sight. “Making illusions a reality is a lot to swallow, Xis!” The fox’s furred fingers scratched at an ear flattened against his head. He fidgeted in place. “It’s just… I don’t think I’d feel comfortable with that kind of power! Really unnerving thinking about how, well, easy it would be to do all sorts of things that are better left as ideas in my head. Then I mean… well. Like. Say I used such a spell to render myself a bush or something to hide from somebody? It’s one thing to just wave my arms and make somebody think they see some leafy greens instead of me.” Limbs tossed out to his sides, Tyridia lazily made some jazz hands at his kitsune summon. “But to actually become such? To become my illusion? Am I literally a bush now?” Folds of fur pressing against the bottoms of his eyes, Tyridia struggled to communicate the frightened thoughts buzzing inside his head.

The kitsune quirked a brow.

“If I am suddenly a greenery am I… am I still me? Did I just sort of kill myself turning myself into an unthinking plant? Or can I still think and I’m just trapped and rooted in the ground? How would I even go back to normal? Can shrubbery even cast magic?”

Xis simply sank his pointed teeth into his black lips. The moist muscles in his throat clenched so as to noisily drag out an exasperated exhale. “Tyridia. How again does an individual, competency aside, go about casting an illusion?”

Stirrings of stupidity and twangs of doubt clutched at the vulpine’s chest. Urf. Shoulders slumping under an onset of embarrassment, Tyr realized he already possessed the answers to his every question.

“I’m waiting,” Xis demanded.

Technically speaking, the fox still liked to tout himself as a summoner. It always called to mind wistful musings of a mage that confidently called upon the creatures of the ether to do his bidding. Tyr’s ears splayed when the dissonance between his desires and day to day life asserted itself. He sighed, the fox’s lips quietly smacking together while his tongue pressed against the back of his teeth. These days his magic and spells were coming more and more to resemble that of his primary summon. Whom he now effectively answered to.

The vulpine forced his gaze to the periphery of his vision. Eyeballs straining in his skull, he didn’t need to look at Xis to feel the kitsune’s concentric gaze drilling into him. “It’s a process. First, the caster crafts an image in their mind’s eye.” Tyr’s tone was equal parts flat and grudging. More or less being asked to explain why he was an idiot didn’t exactly endear him to the four-tailed fox. “Clear in focus, crystal clarity is of the utmost importance. Not only does the illusion need to be convincing but the magic used to make it needs a well formed mold to adhere to. Meaning any amount of uncertainty or fleeting fickle thoughts will collapse the spell in an instant.”

Rote memorization prompted one word after the next to tumble free from Tyridia’s maw. He had written, read, and reread the means and methods behind doing so with such regularity that he could recite it without thinking. Folds of fur scrunched underneath his eyes. Mmfff. “Without thinking, huh?” he quietly mused to himself. It irritated him to no end that such pertinent knowledge failed to assert itself when he actively had been.

“At the very least you can recall the fundamentals,” Xis dismissively snorted with a flit of his tails. Rings of red fur circled around the wavering limbs puffed out with alabaster fluff. “Dare I waste my breath elaborating on why your fears would fail to manifest? After all, I was foolish enough to think such truths would be self-evident to begin with.”

Tyridia’s emerald eyes rolled about their sockets in a rare act of defiance. “No, Xis.” The fox let loose a groaning sigh. “Nothing bad will come to pass unless I well and truly want it to. Which I don’t.” At the very least, the reassurance that an overactive imagination would not damn him to some sort of fate equal to or worse than death was remotely comforting.

The kitsune repeatedly clenched his clawed toes. Grass clippings and dirt collected on the feral fox’s black nails as he cut shallow gashes into the earth. “Hmmm… you are not incorrect,” Xis acknowledged with a sense of begrudging relief. Nose wrinkled, he took to pondering aloud. “Though now I find myself at an impasse.”

“No need to be so roundabout with your putdowns,” Tyridia mouthed under his breath. “Just get on with it,” he thought to himself as he awaited the latest loquacious lashing.

Xis hmmed and hawed as he chewed on his multisyllabic words. “To say this charitable attempt at trying to better you was anything other than an exercise in frustration would be disingenuous to say the least. I’m inclined to declare here and now that the time and effort already expended is nothing more than a sunk cost at this juncture. It would be a triviality, and a desirable one at that, to bring this wasteful bout of wishful thinking to a close. Yet…”

The kitsune tucked his chin against one of his alabaster shoulders. He peered back at his four flittering tails with disdain. Not even half of the feral fox’s once prestigious power was available to him. His teeth clenched against one another. “Should I absolve myself of these annoyances I risk allowing myself to stagnate, to wallow, in this crippled form.”

Sitting cross legged on the ground, ringtail flumping against tufts of grass behind her, Morgan cupped her chin in a fuzzy palm and sighed. “Soooo… you’ve found yourself trapped in a vicious complaint cycle?” The black furred mask pattern that wrapped around her eyes lifted subtly with her eyebrows. “You complain at Tyr that you’re not where you want to be in terms of strength… so you browbeat him into practicing spells he’s entirely unfamiliar with. Then when he doesn’t get them perfect on the very first try, which is only really really really unrealistic in terms of expectations for uhh… anyone, you proceed to gripe and groan even more and call it quits. Which then prompts you to sulk all over again about your perceived lack of strength and leads us right back to where we started. Anything I miss?” The raccoon opined with her eyebrows furrowed and cheeks puffed out.

Nose turned up, Xis huffed.

“Your silence speaks volumes,” Morgan said with a smirk. Dropping her hands to her knees, padded fingers scrunching at the worn white cloth of her robe, the raccoon rose to her feet. Head turned to the side, she hrmmed as she pat away what grass and dirt stains she could that had collected on her backside. “So Tyr. Still up for giving this a shot?”

The fox’s orange furred tail gently swayed side to side while his shoulders lifted with some semblance of confidence. “Yeah,” he quietly affirmed with a nod. “I mean, might as well say I tried!”

“That’s the spirit!” Morgan grinned at the sight of her best friend perking right up. “Gotta say, I’m pretty curious to see what you’ll whip up! Can’t wait to see what sort of fantastical stuff you’ll pluck out of your imagination to make real!”

Tyridia’s lips pulled flat as a deluge of choices promptly knocked aside and effortlessly derailed his now sputtering train of thought. “Ummm. About that…”

A disgusted sigh could be heard from, unsurprisingly, Xis’ direction. “Ignoring that,” the white mage replied with a roll of her eyes, “Something the matter, Tyr?”

Fists clenched, Tyridia sighed. No excuses. “It’s just. Well. Given that I can work with anything and everything that comes to mind it’s really hard to hone in and focus. Kinda sorta a tyranny of choice thing going on,” he harrumphed as his tail draped down against the back of his legs.

“Hmmm.” Red rimmed hood flopped back and crumpled around her neck, Morgan took to pondering. “Anything you’re leaning towards?” A sense of disappointment weighed down on her shoulders, the raccoon’s expression drooping down with them, at the sight of Tyridia shamefully shaking his head side to side.

With a subdued groan the foxy summoner crossed his arms about his chest. Warm gusts of wind made their way into the loose draping sleeves of his kimono and sent them swaying. “I might not have any ideas but. Ummm. Maybe you do?” Awkward it may have been, Tyridia was committed to advancing this attempt. If not to shut Xis up than… ehh. He was sure he could fumble for a much more pragmatic excuse errr justification but honestly that was really all there was to it.

“Oh!” Morgan arched her brows in pleasant surprise. Seeing him step up to the challenge instead of shyly shrinking away from it was a welcome sight. Biting into the interior of her cheek she repressed the urge to preemptively shut down whatever biting remark Xis’ tongue was surely sharpening. Hmmph. All Tyr needed to succeed was a reassuring crutch! One that he could be certain wouldn’t be kicked out from under him at moment’s notice.

The white mage hmmed while her eyes rolled up and around to the edges of her sockets. Finger tapping against the side of her nose she articulated her thoughts no sooner than they came to her. “Oof. Choosing anything from everything is daunting now that I think about it. How about… how about…”

“Idiocy or indecisiveness. I can hardly tell what’s worse,” Xis dismissively stated as his front two feet slid along the grass. Belly against the ground, the kitsune draped one leg over the other. “Inattentiveness is little better,” he grumbled when he received uninterrupted idle chatter in response. Leaning forward, Xis came to let his chin rest atop his fuzzy limbs.

Morgan wracked her brain. Should she suggest something practical? Creative? Fun, maybe? …Or, gods forbid, something indulgent? Warmth flushed her grey furred cheeks as she came to linger on her last inkling of an idea. She clutched at the sides of her robe uneasily. A little wish fulfillment never hurt anybody, right? “I miiiiiiiight have an idea.”

“Might?” Tyridia’s head tilted to its side. He watched on curiously as the raccoon fidgeted in place. Her shyness, rarely if ever displayed, proved a potent if not infectious display. Tyr felt his own cheeks flush at uhhh. The ummm. Chin tucked against his chest, the fox’s gaze dipped down towards his sandaled feet.

Teeth poking into her lips, Morgan huffed. “Might.” Fingers pinched together, she took to rolling folds of fabric between her digits. “It’s. Promise not to laugh.” The raccoon’s ringtail twitched behind her nervously. “I know this’ll sound stupid because it is. But. I. Was wondering if maybe you could. You could… Augh. This makes less and less sense the more I try to word it out.”

Clicks and clacks, telltale sounds of rows of pointed bone pressing together, could be heard as Tyridia’s jaw repeatedly rose and fell. The weight of uncertainty and doubt was all too familiar to the fox. On a practically daily basis he draped such heavy concepts upon his shoulders. Sometimes they slipped on while he still lay sprawled out in bed. Other times he arbitrarily found them equipped on his person no sooner than he stepped out of his room. He was used to it. Time enough had passed that he’d come to familiarize himself with them. That said though… this was supposed to be his thing!

Tyridia’s frets and fusses melted away in the face of Morgan’s own. Subdued urfs and whines silently slipped free from between his lips. He had to do something, anything, to help! S-should he offer up an idea of his own? Mmffff no. No no no no no. “I asked for her help to begin with,” the fox reminded himself. “It’d be rude to turn it down.”

With a soft pap he pressed a curled fist into an open palm. Okay, so instead he’d help her work through and articulate what she already had in mind! With a subtle nod, Tyridia committed himself to said course of action. Lips parting, earfuls of encouragement proceeded to flood out from the fox’s maw. “H-hey, no need to rush! The spell can only work if I have a clear picture in mind s-so take as much time as you need.”

“Right, right,” Morgan demurred. Forcing out a sigh, the raccoon regained her composure. “Ummm. Gotta start somewhere,” she reluctantly followed up with a raspberry. Eyebrows arched, she brushed back the long black bangs of hair that draped over her eyes. “Sooooo. What I was thinking was… was.” The white mage reached back and tugged her hood against her neck. “You can blame Russo for this. Seeing him leisurely trot across rooftops has made me wonder… what’s it like up there? The view, I mean.” Back and forth Morgan wobbled on her feet while she spoke. Her fingers clutched at the velvety red rim of her hood. “If that makes any sense. Mmpph. I dunno there’s just something appealing about it. The idea of seeing something so familiar in a brand new light. Like now, whenever I see the sparrows and crows flitting through the air it makes me wonder. What would it be like to see Yash in their eyes? Perched atop shop stalls or diving through the alleys.”

Morgan took to dragging a paw along the grass. “That got kind of rambly didn’t it?”

“Kinda sorta, but it gets the point across!” Tyr shyly acknowledged. No matter how hard he tried, the fox couldn’t do anything other than smile at seeing the raccoon’s tail wrap around her waist in response. All that separated the two were a few swings of their respective gaits. Even from that distance Tyridia could feel the warmth radiating off of Morgan’s blushing cheeks where he stood. “I think it’s… it’s… doable! A bird’s eye view, huh?”

Clutching at her elbows, the white mage blew another raspberry. Cheeks puffed out she forced out a wry laugh. “I only feel really stupid right now knowing I could have boiled all that down to a sentence and a half. That’s the gist of it!”

Fingers grasping at the sides of his muzzle, padded fingers pressed against the sides of his lips, the foxy summoner hmmed. “Definitely easier to imagine that from what will be her point of view…” Tyridia quietly told himself. His brows flattened at the tall order of imagining looking down on the world from on high.

“Soooo what should I expect?” Morgan inquired as her consternation gave way to curiosity. “Just in terms of, everything, I guess.”

Yawning, Xis rolled his head to the side and nuzzled into the tops of his furry toes. “Banality, if I had to wager.” The kitsune drew a deep breath. Nostrils flared, he noisily exhaled so as to drown out any spoken and unspoken protests. “The spellcasting process itself is uninspiring. What limited power I do possess will be used to augment Tyridia’s own. On a purely temporary basis, mind you. From there what effects you find yourself subjected to are entirely of Tyridia’s discretion. After all, he is the one determining how your idle imaginings will translate from deceptive perceptions to immutable, however provisional, facts. Down to every last minutiae. “

Tyridia’s head tilted back. Up against the backdrop of the blue sky he spied a needle-like silhouette. Wings spread out from and retracted back into its lithe form to a rhythmic beat. Hmmm. The fox tucked his chin against his fuzzy chest and peered down at his sandaled paws. He twiddled his toes against the darkened indents that repeated wear and tear had left in the soles of his footwear while he pondered. Blades of grass tickled against the sides of his fuzzy digits that just barely poked over the leather edges. “It’s a bit of a stretch but it could work,” he quietly mused.

An expression consisting of equal parts exasperation and uncertainty settled upon the raccoon’s visage. Fingers flicking, Morgan regarded Xis’ verbal, albeit vague, explanation with dismissive airs. “That much I gathered. I meant more what’ll happen to me?”

“Still figuring out the finer details on that,” Tyridia answered. “Like… I know what I want you to see and how the world ought to look to you from a bird’s eye vantage and all that. Now how to make it so that is what you see… and I mean. Yes. I know that’s what the spell is supposed to do. But I’m talking the particulars of the spell itself and blaugh.” The frazzled fox took to scratching at an ear shyly.

Morgan hehed. “I’ll take the specifics as they come, how’s that?” Black hair draping down along her puffy robed shoulders, the white mage donned a smile. It took a far more willpower than she had anticipated to keep her ringtail from flitting in concert with Tyridia’s own.

Smacking his lips, Xis reluctantly rose to his feet. Muffled cracks slipped free from between the vertebrae of his conjured skeleton as he took to rolling his scruffy neck side to side. “Preferably within this lifetime, short as yours may be, as opposed to the next,” the kitsune grumbled upon approach.

The fox fidgeted in place. Idea after idea compounded on one another and cluttered his cranium. Huffing aloud, he took to wringing his hands. “What to do, what to do…” he wordlessly mouthed. If what she wanted was a bird’s eye view then why not go the obvious route? He idly imagined a crow, the corvine clad in Morgan’s telltale fluttering white and red rimmed robe soaring through the skies. Tyridia cast a watchful eye up towards the wispy clouds sailing past. Already he could envision seeing Morgan’s feathered form dipping and diving along with the other birds as they frantically fucked about trying not to be skewered by the hawk dive bombing towards them and know what scratch that idea.

“No. No no no no absolutely not no,” Tyridia screamed internally while clumps of feathers drifted past. The thought of her being preyed upon made him shudder. “Alright. Let’s… let’s not do that,” he assured himself. His mind lurched towards thoughts concerning the opposite end of the food chain. Something that preyed upon and was not preyed upon. Also something with wings.

Lips pulled back, Tyr squinted his eyes and shook his head side to side. Morgan as a hawk? Her feet or talons or whatever they’re called bloodied and augh no. He ran his hands through the orange tufts of hair atop his head to try and shake out the maelstrom of musings buzzing in his head. As the flurry of impulses and gut reactions slowly subsided the fox found himself able to cobble together coherent thoughts with some success.

“Today, Tyridia,” Xis quipped. Brows furrowed, the kitsune’s concentric eyes curiously regarded the shower of feathers and fluff that ended no sooner than it started.

“I’m working on it!” The foxy summoner feebly yipped in response. Hmmph. It had to be something that no one would dare threaten. Preferably a little less bloodthirsty and uhhh… hawkish in tendencies to boot. He grunted and shifted in place as his fuzzying thoughts continued to careen towards the extreme. No matter how often he batted the idea away those thoughts they continued to circle round him. Tyr reluctantly acknowledged that he had indeed pondered rendering his ringtail gal pal a dragon continued to plague him. That white and red robe stretched to tatters along her scaly neck and fierce fuck why was he even entertaining this? Morgan was not a monster. She was his friend! His best friend.

The raccoon and kitsune exchanged glances. Morgan offered as reassuring a shrug she could manage while Xis rolled his concentric eyes.

Fretting something fierce, Tyridia ushered himself onwards. Alright so maybe imagining her as something else entirely wasn’t the way to go. Making Morgan into something she wasn’t just didn’t sit right. Fingers scrunching together and tugging at the furry folds of flesh adorning his cheeks, the vulpine tried to pull his spiraling thoughts out of their tailspin. He could… he could… shit why not just give Morgan wings? Within his mind’s eye Tyr cringed at the sight of the raccoon’s fingers splaying apart and elongating. Flesh spilling out between them and feathers coating their no no no no no stop it good goddamn. Twangs of anger corralled the fox’s fleeting thoughts as he grew all but fed up with his own overactive imagination.

“This should not be this hard,” the kimono clad summoner told himself. Wings. Jutting out from Morgan’s back. Thoughts rendered curt and practically monosyllabic the frustrated fox forced his unchecked creativity to heel. Large feathery wings. Fitting through large slits cut into the back of the raccoon’s robe. That spanned the length of her body. “Straight and to the point,” Tyridia thought to himself with an exasperated exhale. “Although…”

Tyridia rolled his eyes and bit down into his bottom lip. Even now the most persistent and pernicious of doubts managed to filter through. Although… although… augh. Even with wings, what if Morgan simply didn’t know how to fly? His eyes dipped down towards his fuzzy feet. After all, how could she know?

“Time enough has been allowed to pass,” Xis declared with a stamp of his paw. Blades of grass crumpled beneath the kitsune’s alabaster furred toes. “My presence is not to be taken for granted. Either advance my aims or dispel me. Be grateful that I have even entertained your crippling ineptitude for as long as I have.”

Nostrils flaring, the fox’s shoulders slumped. “Fine.” Fists clenched, his clawed fingers dug painfully into his palms. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Morgan?”

Morgan shifted her weight between her legs uneasily. Even if it was for the sake of her best friend, she had her reservations. The soft hem of her robe gently bounced against her fuzzy shins. “…Tyr. I’m going to need something to work with here. Anything. Anything at all you can share?”

“She deserves that much at least,” Tyridia ruefully acknowledged. He fumbled for what few coherent thoughts he had managed to cobble together. The means on how to do so may have escaped him. He knew though, Tyridia knew, what he wanted Morgan to see in his mind’s eye. Tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth he began to speak. “Now it’s not exact but… I can give you an idea of what you should expect to see. When the spell is done, I mean. When you look down, and you’ll be looking way down, you should see the land spread out beneath you. The clumped together pines and oaks like blades of grass to you.”

The raccoon’s nerves unraveled at the mention. Resolutely, she stood her ground. Toes clenched within the confines of boots Morgan reeled in the urge to stamp her feet excitedly. No never absolutely not she refused to be seen doing something so... so… giddy. Whisking through the air and swooping down to circle round her friends as the wind whistled by certainly did not appeal to her in the slightest and come the hell on get on with it already Tyridia. Morgan cleared her throat. “Still a little light on the details but it’ll do. Thanks, Tyr.”

“Seriously, how am I going with wings?” the summoner pondered in a panic. Curled fist brought up to his muzzle, Tyridia nervously nibbled at a fuzzy finger while he mulled his options. His orange furred ears twitched to the steady paps of Xis’s muffled footfalls. He needed a picture. A clear mental picture present within his mind’s eye, static and unchanging, was required for this spell to succeed. The fox’s eyes pressed against the side of their sockets and worriedly regarded the approaching kitsune.

“Forgive me for my recalcitrance,” Xis dismissively regarded his summoner. “But I cannot help but ruminate that, even with my aid, you will nevertheless find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Once I have gathered and distilled the required magical energies for this casting, the onus falls on you to properly wield it.” The kitsune’s four tails curled inward. The red rings of fur that circled Xis’ fuzzy limbs glowered and pulsed as the tips of his tails came together.

White wisps of ether, purified and pulled free from the magic laden air, snaked along the feral fox’s limbs. They came to coalesce in the claustrophobic confines of what negligible free space remained between Xis’ gathered tail tips. There they were condensed into an orb of energy that hummed ominously with power. The kitsune’s tails slowly unfurled as the consolidating ether, the toll for the spell to be cast, gathered in size and strength.

Tyridia’s heart practically palpitated as the accumulating stress squeezed at his chest. He forced down a nervous swallow. Any doubts, any uncertainties, any second guesses would collapse the gathered ether in an instant. Wings. Wings wings wings wings what the hell was he going to do with them? The fox forced out a strained sigh. Whatever he settled on would be a shaky foundation, at best, for this most advanced of illusion spells. …This wasn’t going to work.

Waves of energy pulsed back against the kitsune’s tails, rippling across his alabaster and red strands of fur. The streams of ether slowed to a trickle along Xis’ limbs as they lurched between being drawn in and pulsed away.

“Think think think think think!” Mind racing, Tyr grasped at imaginary straws. “Don’t panic,” he told himself. Terse wracked breaths wheezed through his nostrils. Mmff. Well so much for that. Recap, regroup. There had to be something, anything, that he could work with. There was… there ummm there was… ahhh that’s it! He may not have known how he wanted to see Morgan but at the very least he knew precisely how he wanted Morgan to see him! “Only told myself how many times it would be easier to craft the illusion from her point of view?” he quietly chastised himself. His head lifted up as the weight of his worried thoughts began to dissipate.

The trees no more than blades of grass. Such was the picture Tyridia had painted for Morgan. Eyes squinted shut, the fox mapped out that mental image. He imagined peering down at his sandals and eyeing the pointed leaves tickling at his fuzzy toes. Technically those ought to be Morgan’s… Splotches of black and grey overwhelmed the fox’s feet. Minor, if not outright negligible details, all the same. Pressure pressing against his eyes, he forced those imagined green shoots of grass to blur and distort into leaves. The pale white crease running down their center peeling apart to become the trunks and branches of the newly designated trees. “Wings… wings… gotta work those in somehow…” He thought back to earlier when, to his abject horror, clumps of feathers lazily drifted by. With some difficulty the fox mentally plucked apart the individual feathers and sent them sailing past what would be Morgan’s shoulders.

Tyridia forced a smile while his breath whistled between his teeth. Now admittedly, he was purposefully going out of his way to kind of sort of cheat the spell. So maybe he wasn’t actively imagining Morgan as a winged raccoon. Nothing said he couldn’t creatively, and heavily, imply such a thing though! For instance… the vulpine summoner found himself at a loss for how to mentally mold Morgan’s newfound avian appendages. Sooooooo instead, he’d focus his efforts on the feathers that were sure to flutter past her shoulders! The ones that originated from the wings that were oh so conveniently out of his pretend line of sight. Oh! Aaaand if those wings were flapping that would imply she knew how to use them yes yes yes this was all coming together!

The fox’s expression grew tranquil. What pressure had been pressing down against his eyelids ceased to be. His chest expanded as he drew deeply of the air around him. Lips pursed, he slowly exhaled. “This could work. Ummm… wait. No. No no no. This will work!” Tyr told himself.

“Ready Morgan?” Tyridia inquired aloud.

Bouncing upon her heels in a mixture of anxiousness and unease, the white mage nodded. “May as well get it done and over with before my nerves get the best of me. This… this will wear off after a while, right?”

“Of course it will,” Xis snipped. Clawed toes digging into the grassy ground, he arched his back in an attempt to stave off being pancaked under the welling weight of the condensing ether. His many tails valiantly resisted, yet ultimately failed, the urge to unfurl as it became apparent he did not possess the strength to force any more energy into the oversaturated orb. The kitsune heaved out a heavy sigh while his legs trembled. “The magic necessary to cast this spell, voluminous as it may be, is still finite. Given my… diminished presence, all that I am capable of consolidating will dissipate within the passage of a day,” he grunted. Black lips pulled back, the feral fox narrowed his crimson concentric eyes.

Morgan hmmed. “A day, huh? Time enough for me to indulge in… pff. I can’t bring myself to say it.” The raccoon stifled a giggle before directing a toothy grin at her foxy friend. “If that’s the case then, mind covering my chores today Tyr? Because let’s be honest I sincerely doubt I’ll be able to, much less want to, thanks to whatever it is you have in store for me!”

The fox couldn’t help but shyly smile back at her in response. “Sure! Least I can do, after all. You’re helping me practice my spells and I’ll help you… do not quite that. I-It’s a close enough trade,” he timidly tapered off. His thoughts, while flushed, remained for the most part clear and unambiguous.

Eyes gone wide, Xis tucked his fluffy neck against a shoulder and glared back at the duo. “So courteous of you two to leisurely lay out your plans in advance as I crumple under this aggregation of ether. Meld this magic to your whims NOW.”

“You could’ve always just told us to move it along,” Morgan mumbled aloud. At Tyridia’s beckoning she padded up alongside the fox. Standing beside the kitsune, she could feel the unseen pulses of energy pound through her chest. At steady intervals creases spontaneously manifested themselves in the fine fabric of her robe.

“Actually… my bad, you may want to step back for this,” Tyr murmured. He timidly waved to the raccoon as she smirked at him. A roll of the eyes accompanying the impatient flits of her ringtail, Morgan put some paces between them. “S-sorry!” he hehed.

Furrowing his brows, the foxy summoner nodded solemnly. Were it not for the cloth belt wrapped around his waist, the fox’s kimono was doing its damndest to part in the wake of the potent power situated before him. He sighed. No amount of steady breathing, wishful thinking, or outside encouragement would ever put to rest the buzzing nervousness that clutched at his limbs. Best to just get it over with.

Tyridia reached out towards the imposing orb-the toll he would offer to rewrite reality, however briefly. His long loose sleeves, cerulean in color, were forced back up along his arms where they came to crumple against his shoulders. He found his fur being blown back by the power’s mere presence. Shimmering hues of light mirrored in his emerald eyes, the fox splayed his padded fingertips and grunted. An unseen barrier seemingly surrounded the mass of magic and pressed back against the vulpine’s digits anytime he so much as attempted to grasp it. Wrists aching and fingers growing stiff, it would have to suffice.

“This buildup is entirely extraneous and wholly unnecessary,” Xis growled between clenched teeth. All while his legs trembled shakily.

“Alright alright alright,” Tyr shot back. Closing his eyes, the fox focused intently on molding the gathered magic. Shaping and twisting it to fill out the skeletal scaffolding of the intended illusion mapped out in his head. Tendrils of ether slowly coiled up and out of the orb and curled round his foxy fingertips.

He could feel his stomach drop at the first twangs of vertigo. Looking down so far from above it was as if the trees themselves struggled to scrape past the tips of his toes. It was equal parts unsettling and reassuring. At least he, hurf, knew his illusionary imaginings were convincing ones given how strongly the magic was already latching onto it. Wisps of ether seethed off his orange furred limbs. Ever more energy constricted around his limbs as the orb steadily dwindled in size.

Then there were the feathers! His cheat, so to speak. Tyr stifled a snicker as he tried to ignore the tickling of his facial fur. Soft downy feathers and refreshing gusts of air brushing against his cheeks… it was astounding how true to life these mere musings felt. The sights and sensations that Morgan were to experience had been made clear. All that remained was to make them real. Eyes creaking open, Tyridia yipped. Gone was the orb. In its place lay an exhausted Xis splayed upon the ground, the summoner’s view muddled by the stringy torrents of ether that burned off his fuzzy limbs. Hands held out to his sides he couldn’t help but marvel at the overwhelming energy twisting away back into air from whence it was drawn from. His foxy form was simply physically incapable of housing it all.

Morgan looked on in awe, then amusement, as she observed Tyridia fumbling with his newfound capabilities. She sensed no lust for power. Not even an inkling of a desire to abuse… or hell even just plain use it for that matter! Just a friendly, if not flustered, fox who needed to be reminded what to do with all of it. “Whenever you’re ready, Tyr!” she called out.

“Oops! R-right. Right,” the fox fidgeted while magic visibly burned off of his appendages. Urf, at this rate there’d be nothing left. Hands held out before him, padded palms up, Tyridia concentrated. Embers, purple and wavering, appeared within his grasp. Near instantaneously they fwooshed in size and strength as they came to spill out over the edges of his fingertips. The ether lingering on his limbs was steadily drawn towards his hands like the receding of a tidal surge. Swirling around the ravenous flames, more akin to magical vortex, Tyr’s fox fire continued to violently flare up to sizes most unwieldy. The flickering flames licked harmlessly, save for the stuffy and suffocating warmth they radiated, at the foxy fingers propping them up from beneath. After all these particular fires were meant to distort, not destroy.

Tyridia swallowed hard. He sincerely hoped Morgan would like what he had in mind. “Here comes, Morgan!” he all but proclaimed. Swinging his arms across the length of his body they slapped together at the wrists. Twin flames sailed forward, leaving a smoky purple wisp in their warped wake. They advanced upon Morgan, who with fists clenched and boots planted firmly against the ground, steeled herself for impact. A barely audible fwump announced their arrival. The raccoon’s form was obscured for an instant by the flicker of flame. Billowing plumes of violet smoke, accompanied by a violent burst of air that threatened to send Tyridia tumbling back, shrouded Morgan soon after.

Fur, tail, sleeves, kimono… may as well say everything at this point, was blown back as the fox worriedly regarded the purple hued smoke wafting up and out.

“Hmmph,” Xis grumbled as he staggered to his feet. “Regardless of the sure to be uninspired results, at the very least you proved yourself capable of casting a spell of such magnitude. It’s… an advancement,” he conceded. The kitsune shook his body side to side, knocking free blades of grass and clods of dirt from his furred form. They noisily papped against Tyridia’s kimono much to the fox’s unsurprised disdain.

“…I’ll take it,” the vulpine thought to himself in subdued delight. Running his fingers through the fur atop his head, Tyr ruffled it back into place. He took to idly shifting his stance while he eagerly… okay maybe more worriedly… mmph forget it. Alright so he awaited some sort of reaction from the smoky silence that billowed before him. The couple of coughs in response didn’t quite cut it. Anxiousness getting the better of him, Tyr cupped his hands around his muzzle. “S-so, Morgan! What do you think?”

Swatting at the magic laden air before her, the raccoon stumbled through the suffocating shades of purple. “It’s… A lot more constrictive than I thought it’d be?” She grunted as her robe tugged tightly across her back while the red rimmed sleeves tugged up along her arms. The stringy seams running down the leggings of Morgan’s pants began to unravel and tug apart in intermittent spurts. Grey tufts of fur came to poke out between the gaps in fabric. “Tyr, I’m not going to need a change of clothes for this am I?” she called out.

“You might,” Tyridia timidly acknowledged. Clawed finger scratching at a cheek he reluctantly recognized that, well, a sudden onset of extra appendages wouldn’t exactly do any wonders for one’s attire. “I-I can always get you a new robe!”

Morgan fumbled through the thick fog of ether towards the sound of her friend’s voice. With every swing of her gait the white mage couldn’t help but notice how each footfall grew progressively more discomforting if not borderline painful. Head tilted down, her eyes went wide. Bulbous masses, visibly swelling in size, stretched at the leathery tips of her boots from the inside. With some amount of alarm she regarded how they twiddled as best they could at her command. “Tyr? What exactly was supposed to happen again?”

“Ummm…”

“Tyr that’s not helping!” With a far too satisfying pop the raccoon’s footwear split apart at the stitching running along its sides. Warm black padded flesh spilled free and came to smother the surrounding flora beneath it. A painful pinch snapped at Morgan’s toes when the curved leather containing them finally gave way in tandem. Thick furred raccoon toes twiddled freely in the humid air and left noticeable indents in the unseen grassy earth.

“For a moment there I was beginning to doubt the sheer scope of your incompetence, Tyridia,” Xis smirked. “Neglecting to take into account the banal consequences of an illusion come to life? How predictably maladroit.”

Wringing his hands, the fox stumbled on his stutters. “I. Okay some discomfort isn’t unexpected, I guess?” He whined and shuffled nervously. “I-if anything you should be expecting a new point of view, and soon, courtesy of some-” His heart leapt into his throat. An amorphous and gargantuan something, contrails of smoke trailing off its ill-defined form, lurched out of cloud brought low. Tyridia’s ears went flat at the familiar female coughs that emanated from it. “Not. That,” he whimpered. Rrrrrips, tears, and whatever other onomatopoeias there were for clothes coming apart punctuated the silence between the thooming figure’s footfalls. Both Tyr and Xis stood frozen, jaws agape and eyes wide open, as the dense wispy remains of the fox fire dissipated.

“How?! How how how how how?” Tyridia panicked aloud. He thought back to the mapped out musings he had used to lay the groundwork for the spell. The fox latched back onto the vertigo inducing point of view that rendered the trees no taller than the tips of his toes. No, no no no, no that couldn’t have been it. “But I-I had the feathers and everything!”

Hand brought up to her muzzle, a now monumental Morgan continued to cough into it while swatting away the lingering razzle and dazzle of the spell gone awry. An errant backhand slammed into a low flying sparrow. With a shrill chirp it exploded into feathery puff.

The foxy summoner began to scream internally. He ran his hands through his fuzzy cheeks and tugged at the back of his neck. What would Morgan say? Auggggghhh worse yet what would Xis say? With great hesitation Tyridia creaked his head to side until his chin nudged against a shoulder.

Black lips curled up into a manic grin and his four ringed tails wagging contentedly, Xis gleefully ogled his overgrown teammate.

Tyr wasn’t sure whether to be amazed or aghast at the sight.

The kitsune could hardly contain his delight at the failure gone so so right. Head tilted back to the point his neck grew stiff he took note of Morgan’s much improved wardrobe and assets, all courtesy of her magnified stature. “Where to begin?” the feral fox hmmed to himself. Ahhh there were those ruined robes of hers that barely came down to the knees, showing off those shapely long legs she typically kept so well hidden. Or perhaps those lack of sleeves? They may have not been all that noteworthy on their own but who was he to scoff at all the more exposed fur? Heavens and there were the rips and tears along her chest, that pitiful little robe struggling to spread across Morgan’s shoulders, offering a peek at her petite bosom!

Blinking her amber eyes, Morgan peered down at her now comparatively diminutive foxy friends. That barely came up to her ankles. “…Tyr.” Heel pressed against the ground, padded underside of her foot effortlessly digging a divot into the grass, she took to thumping a foot against the ground. Its every pap and thump sent both Tyridia and Xis scrambling for balance. “Bird’s eye view aside, this is not what I had in mind.”

“N-nor I!” Tyridia wailed out in apology. Swallowed up in her shadow, the fox fearfully locked his eyes with her looming gaze. Those him-sized toes noisily thooming against the ground sent tremors through his thin foxy frame. “We can fix this! Right, Xis? Xis? Xis.” He groaned at the grin he received in response.

“Such a shame the gathered magic exhausted itself before her assets could be exemplified any further,” the kitsune giddily opined to himself. “Oh hmm? Fix this? Ahh. I… acknowledge that to do so is within the realm of possibility. However, the spell’s effects will expire on their own in due time. Why expend such unnecessary effort when-”

Folds of fur pressed up against the bottom of the raccoon’s eyes. “Tyr, either you poof him away or I will.”

“Bye Xis,” Tyridia blurted out accompanied by a snap of his fingers. Before the kitsune could so much as react he vanished into a puff of purple. His presence dispelled, the fox and raccoon were left to their lonesome. His shoulders slumped down in shame at the sound, and sensation, of Morgan’s heaving sigh blowing down from on high. The fox’s jaw hung open while he fumbled for something, anything, to say.

“I’m sorry, Morgan.” A long and painful silence followed.

With a roll of her half-lidded eyes, the wumbo white mage forced an exhale out through her moist black nostrils. “I know you are,” she replied in resignation. A gentle breeze kicked up and sent her long black hair draping down over her exposed shoulders. Reluctantly, Morgan turned her attention elsewhere and looked on out over the flowering plains. A small smile cracked her grumpy visage at the pleasant sight. Seeing the wind flow in waves across the tops of the swaying green grasses, the bobbing of the petals, all of it to the unheard beat of the serene silence that accompanied it. The view from on up here really was something, at least. A day, huh? …She’d manage.

“So… umm… umm… I’m still good to cover your chores for today!”

Morgan’s eyes bobbed back down to the bottom of their sockets. “Well you good and goddamned better! A deal’s a deal,” she playfully smirked. She knew he meant no ill will and she knew he would do everything he could to make it better. “Not like being mad at him will make this go away any faster,” she told herself while her teeth clenched. With great effort she forced the pressure welling within her jaw to relieve itself. Peaceful as this was… yeah this wasn’t going to get her through the day.

“Come on, let’s get going,” Morgan declared nonplussed.

“W-where to?”

“Where do you think? Can’t very well cover for me back in Yash if we’re slumming it up here. Besides…” she took to rubbing at a shoulder shyly. “Maybe Master will have something that can make this pass sooner rather than later. No harm in trying, right?”

Tyridia nodded in response.

With a beckoning wave of her hand Morgan took to plodding off towards the horizon. Her heavy feet thumping across the plains, stalks of grass embedding into the padded underside of her paws with one step and peeling off the next, she couldn’t help but be impressed at the terrific time she was making. She’d be back home within the hour! “Silver linings,” she had to tell herself.

“H-hey! Wait up!” Tyridia huffed as he trailed after her. He had to sprint to so much as keep pace with her. All while remaining mindful to keep his gait in sync with hers lest he be bounced up into the air. That and avoid falling into the craterous indents she left in her wake. “Mind slowing down a bit?” He gasped out at the ankles he was eye level with.

“Tyr, this is me walking at a leisurely pace.”

“That’s because your legs are so damn long!”

“And whose fault is that?” she teased back.

“…Mine.”