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Massive, imposing, intimidating, and... sassy. Typically, that's not what comes to mind when the concept of 'White Mage' is tossed out there. Through no fault of her own, an illusion made real, a botched one at that, has rendered Morgan the raccoon as such.
Enlarged and embarrassed, Morgan strives to go about her day all the same! To mixed results.
As folks may have noticed over the past couple of weeks, I've been posting lots of art starring a very large and lovely raccoon lass by the name of Morgan! Like say...
Wumbo White Mage
Cramped Quarters
Crowded Campsite
Hallway Filling Hips
A Huffy Handful
She hails from my ongoing story, Shady Impressions, and some time back she featured in a very silly side story, Illicit Illusions, that rendered her quite ginormous! This here story wraps up that loose end that left her stranded and rather loomy.
This was definitely something new for me, as it is series of scenes and vignettes that accompanies a lot of pictures and tells an overarching story of Morgan going about her day, and I hope it turned out well! Actually had to split this up into two posts as I wrote so darn much it can't be contained in one!
And of course, incredible icon comes courtesy of
watchoutfordragons!
Sizable Reservations: Real and Imagined
By: RaddaRaem
“Sooooooooooo,” Tyridia trailed on. Faint green stains accumulated upon his sandals as his feet scuffed against the blades of grass lining the sides of the trail.
Morgan’s subdued footfalls, thunderous and earth-shaking, spanned the entirety of the pebble lined path leading to Yash. “So?” she replied. The sheer volume of air displaced by her broad padded soles sent clouds of dirt swirling around the giantess’ ankles following her every seismic step.
Tyr clenched his eyes shut when he walked into yet another lingering puff of dust; his muzzle scrunched in irritation as the particulate matter mottled his bright orange fur. “So, umm… what exactly are we going to do? When we get back to Yash, I mean?” The foxy summoner dared to inquire.
Black lips pulled flat, the white mage offered up a subdued shrug. “Head back to the guild and touch base with Master? Like we always do?” Both her tone and expression were incredulous.
“No! No, I-I mean. Well.” Whining, his eyes swiveled side to side along the bottoms of their sockets. “Yes, I get that, but just the whole… you. You know.” He awkwardly gestured at her enormous everything.
“Tyr, be honest.” Arms at her sides, Morgan swished her open palms through the air and splayed her fingers apart with a forced flourish. “What else are we supposed to do? We can’t very well just wait this out. Okay so technically, yes, we could. But for how long?”
Clawed fingertips scratched at the back of the fox’s flattened ears. “I would think, I-I mean, I would hope a spell this potent would burn itself off over the day. Maybe Xisssss-” At the mere mention of the kitsune’s name Tyridia felt himself wilting under the gravity of Morgan’s glower. Tongue pressed against the roof his mouth, a whistle wafted out between his lips as he struggled to salvage his train of thought. “-ssssssss is better left to Master.”
Eyes half-lidded, the muscles in Morgan’s cheeks strained as her lips tugged to the side in a display of equal parts dismissiveness and disgust. “Like I said… what else are we supposed to do?”
The fox’s white tipped tail shyly flit side to side before tucking itself between his legs. “Yeah. Yeahhhhhhhh. That and Master would justifiably wonder where and why we wandered off for the day.” His shoulders slouched at the thought of being chewed out by the greying panther.
“You know she’d be hard pressed to believe we were waiting out an illusion made real short of showing her,” Morgan mumbled. The raccoon distracted herself from her sizeable predicament, for at least the moment, by puffing up at a long lock of hair dangling before her face. Wrinkles formed in the black mask of fur that wrapped around her amber eyes as she alternated between huffs and puffs.
“To be fair…” Tyridia tapered off. His thoughts struggled to form themselves into coherent sentences as his legs burned from treading into and out of paw-shaped depressions in the earth left in Morgan’s wake. The thick raccoon feet responsible for them, all but obscuring his vision with their padded heels and soles, weren’t helping. “This… uh… t-this is downright tame compared to what we’ve been wrangling with lately thanks in no small part to Russo! There’s been what… demons and deities and who knows what else!”
Morgan brushed back the uncooperative strand of hair and took to rolling her all but exposed shoulders. Tattered tufts of white cotton sailed away on the breeze as every swing of the raccoon’s arms ripped her robe’s sleeves well beyond recognition. “I really could see her giving us a pass on this, not that we need it. And besides, you did offer to cover for me today. Not tomorrow or the day after. Today.”
“It’s not like I was trying to back out of it or anything…” Tyr smarted. The stinging barbs, and rumbling octaves, of her spoken words hung heavily on his shoulders. As did the guilt and shame of flubbing up a spell so spectacularly that he temporarily rendered his best friend a behemoth.
Tyridia forced the welling lump in his throat down with a hard swallow. A-a beautiful behemoth, at that. Try as he might to force his gaze downward at his feet, and the sun bleached straps of leather wrapped around them, his grassy green eyes always managed to drift onwards and upwards towards Morgan. “Noooooo,” he uselessly chastised himself as he looked upon those toned and shapely legs that dwarfed him in thickness. “No no no no no,” Tyr ashamedly sussed at himself as he continued to ogle those lumbering grey furred limbs that subtly tensed with every step.
T-this was his best friend he was leering at for goodness sakes! His bignormous best friend whose soft and rounded ankles came up to his chin. Said ankles connecting to broad black soled paws that revealed themselves every time she stepped forward. “Stoppit, stoppit, stoppit,” Tyridia helplessly repeated as did anything but that and dutifully took note of the faint layer of dirt caking her soles. That and the overwhelming warmth radiating off of their fox smothering surfaces. T-then of course how could he neglect the steady hiss of pebbles, sputtering free from the wrinkled folds of flesh lining the bottom of her paws?
Tyridia sighed bitterly and ran his hands up along his fuzzy cream cheeks before cupping his palms against his eyes. His fingers clamped together as he steadfastly denied himself yet another sneak peek. This was going to be a long day. “Where should we start?” he mumbled into his palms.
“If we’re lucky, maybe Master will be able to fix this? Magical suppression is her bread and butter after all. I would think… I would hope, cancelling out an illusion is something she’s more than capable of,” Morgan mulled aloud while her ringed tail wrapped itself around her waist. She abruptly eeped when a balmy gust of wind all but goosed her, prompting the wumbo white mage’s teeth to clack together at an uncomfortable realization; her ill-fitting robe didn’t cover her behind so much as it rested atop it. Gods above, no wonder Tyridia could hardly bring himself to look at her.
An uneasy groan exposed the first cracks in Morgan’s otherwise composed veneer as her padded fingers clutched comfortingly at her puffy appendage. “And if she can’t… we can always count on her to keep our noses to the grindstone. Errr. Your nose to the grindstone, anyway. It’ll be something familiar at least.”
“Hope for the best and assume the worst?” the fox wryly smirked even as he continued to stare into the padded palms pressed against his face.
Morgan allowed a shy smile to crease her lips. Her embarrassment slowly gave way to affection. “Don’t be getting all defeatist on me! Yet, anyway. Save that for if Master – and hopefully hopefully hopefully not when -- dashes those hopes faster than we can raise them. Deal?”
“Deal,” Tyridia timidly acquiesced as his white tipped tail took to swishing to and fro behind him.
“Hey there!” Hand held up in a placating manner, Morgan waved at the dumbfounded merchant stationed along Yash’s outskirts. Wide-eyed, the wolf stared back up at her. His jaw parted as a drawn out vowel proceeded to rumble forth from his maw.
“Please don’t scream! Please. Please,” she implored. The colossal raccoon pedaled backwards as daintily as she could manage. The tiny shack violently rattled in place all the same.
The screaming continued unabated.
Morgan continued to distance herself. “No harm no foul, see? It’s uhh… well actually it’s a pretty short story but trust me when I say I’m not a giant! Not usually, anyway. Heck, I’m a returning customer even!”
In response, the screaming grew even louder.
Tyridia forced a nervous smile. “At least he hasn’t run off? Better he does this than start a panic.” Arms crossed about his chest, Tyridia rubbed his hands along the sleeves of his kimono.
“Tyr, I know you’re trying to be supportive,” Morgan sighed as she slouched forward. “But this isn’t exactly something I want to be congratulated about. Literally paralyzing someone with fear.” Her lips pulled down into a frown at the stubbornly persistent wails. “You’re going to have to breathe sometime. You do know that, right?”
Strained coughs sounded out when the cowardly wolf finally emptied his lungs. A welcome silence filled the air as he flopped forward onto his selection of mana crystals and panted.
“Want me to go grab Master before he gets started again?” Tyridia inquired. The fox grimaced when the merchant feebly patted at his chest.
“Please do,” Morgan replied. Nostrils flared, she drew deeply from the air around her in an attempt to soothe her sagging spirits. Or tried to, at least. A pronounced rrrrrrip emanated out from her chest as her lungs inflated.
“Ummm…” Tyridia swallowed hard.
The white mage’s eyes cratered to the bottom of their sockets and warily regarded her now exposed cleavage. Dread clutched at both her chest, and throat, as her panicked heart pounded against the back of her ribcage, her bosom bouncing with every beat. Continued rrrrrrips and tiny tears spread throughout what remained of her robe every time they did so.
Arms draped uselessly at his sides Tyr ogled those grey furred hills threatening to flood forth. The fine fabric levees barely holding back his best friend’s petite bosom showed signs of strain as the white walls of cloth spread themselves dangerously thin.
Morgan exhaled slowly and with restraint. “Please hurry,” she groaned out in between her noticeably shallower breaths.
Head nodding furiously, Tyridia turned tail and hauled ass.
The colossal racoon’s pointed ears twitched when the clapping of the fox’s sandals against his soles soon was joined by the soft tunk of leather on cobblestone. At least he was making good progress.
Limbs trembling, the cowed wolf could barely muster the energy to whine much less scream.
The white mage bit down into her lower lip. When faced with curses most foul and diabolical demons she never once wavered. Yet here she was choking up at the possibility of a freaking wardrobe malfunction? “Shameful,” Morgan chided herself under her breath. “Absolutely shameful.” Like hell she was going to let her revealing attire, or her imposing and unwieldy stature, stop her from doing what needed to be done.
Clearing her throat, the raccoon turned her attention towards the solemn duties required of her as a proper white mage. “Hey uhh… you. It might not look it but I’m a white mage by trade! See?” Dropping to a crouch, her eyebrows flattened when, unsurprisingly, her clothing kept on covering less and less of her. Morgan inhaled through her teeth when she felt her tattered robe pull up along her back. While the breeze was nice, she didn’t terribly enjoy feeling it brush against her exposed butt cheeks.
A faint groan escaped from the canine’s throat.
With a roll of her eyes, Morgan extended an open palm out to the wolf. Soothing wisps of energy trailed off her padded digits as she channeled a simple Cure spell. The faint and smoky ether twirled along errant puffs of wind and ultimately dissipated within the moisture laden air as a pale white aura came to engulf her hand upon completion of the casting. “Please, let me help! I can put your wearied soul to rest and-” Oh gods. Cheeks puffed out, she watched the wolf shiver as her shadow swallowed up him and his ho-hum shop. Phrasing, Morgan, phrasing.
“No no no no I didn’t mean like…” The raccoon sighed bitterly. ”Alright look, I’ll make this quick. Wait. Oh, dammit. You know what I’ll just stop talking.” Reaching forward, she achingly maneuvered an outstretched finger towards him. Translucent beads of ether congealed upon her padded fingertip as the white mage guided it into the open-air stall. A faint pressure pressed against her warm leathery flesh when she made contact. “There!”
Her wrist gone stiff, Morgan cautiously retracted her hand while an inviting glow filled the structure as plumes of purple trailed off his shoulders. Blinking repeatedly, the canine pulled himself off his wares and regarded his continued existence with disbelief.
Morgan couldn’t help but smile when the merchant’s stress figuratively and literally melted away. “Better?” she asked.
The wolf replied with subdued nods while he shakily dusted himself off and rearranged his scattered wares.
“Good.” Her lips curled into a smile as her ringtail wrapped itself around her ankles.
Before the otherwise one-sided exchange could drag itself on into an awkward silence a mismatched pair of footfalls registered in the raccoon’s ears. “Please be them please be them please be them,” Morgan pleaded under her breath.
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you, Tyridia. You have the benefit of my doubt after all! Why else would I have accompanied you out here?” The panther gently elbowed the flustered fox at her side.
“That’ll leave a bruise…” Tyr mumbled under his breath as he nursed his sore shoulder. “Thanks, Master. It’s just… a lot to take in is all!”
Nadie’s long legs stomped to a halt when she breached Yash’s informal boundaries. The panther took to stroking the salty white patches of fuzz that lined her otherwise black furred chin and hrmmed. “So she is.”
Even when crouching Morgan still managed to shame every structure in the immediate vicinity in terms of sheer size.
The Yash guild master’s steely grey eyes slowly swung back and forth between her sizeable subordinate and the forgotten outposts that lined Yash’s outskirts. Were the panther to climb atop their ramshackle roofs she still wouldn’t be eye level with the poor girl…
“Oh thank goodness,” Morgan heaved in relief. Arm crossed about her chest, forearm covering her cleavage, she shyly took to waving at her guild mate and guild master with her free hand. The simple motion of swinging her limb side to side sent gusts, along with pebbles and stray splinters peeled from the merchant’s stall, tumbling towards them.
Brows arched, a nonplussed expression creased Nadie’s features as the cape of her cloak fluttered behind her. “If this is but a remarkably convincing illusion I would peg it well beyond your current capabilities. No offense, Tyridia.”
“None taken, Master.”
Nadie smirked and took to waving back at Morgan as she sauntered towards her. “I will admit. I’m conflicted as to whether to cheer or chide the both of you. Blurring the lines between what’s real and imagined is a fantastic feat! Now how you chose to do so, granted, is… questionable.”
“I knowwwwwwwwwwww,” the fox groaned. “I know, I know, I know.” Head hanging low, Tyridia’s gaze settled on his clawed toes twiddling against the dark divots in his sandal’s soles. His ears burned hot at the mere thought of Morgan and her amplified… everything. Tyr winced when the low and pitiful whine rumbling out from his throat was interrupted by Nadie’s thick palm slapping against his back.
“You feel guilty. You feel ashamed. You feel responsible for what has transpired. Tyridia, do not be mistaken. I am proud to know you feel as such. To know that you’ve cultivated such a fine tuned moral compass. But now is not the time to wallow. Reflect later. Act now.” Squeezing firmly at the scruff of his neck, Nadie forced the foxy summoner to match her pace, all the while her thick black kitty tail undulated behind her in betrayal of her inquisitive intentions. “Come, child. Let’s do what we can for her.”
“Do you really think this will work, Master?” Morgan asked. Her eyes rolled about their sockets at every ahhhhh, eeeeeek, and ooooooh directed her way.
Leading the raccoon, Nadie doled out half-hearted waves and knowing nods to every anxious passerby. “At ease. She’s with me,” she purred out ad nauseam. The panther’s commanding presence and confident composure snuffed out any semblance of an outright panic from settling upon the streets. Even so, a palpable unease lingered in the humid air.
“To answer your question, no,” Nadie tersely stated in between reassurances. “However, it’s worth a shot all the same. Suppressing spells is a straightforward affair. Smothering finely crafted ether, regardless of what form it takes, is a trivial matter thanks to the swarms of shadow that blanket the land. Problem is… the thunder of your footfalls and the breeze upon your breath are no spells. That is the swing of your step; the unthinking act of inhaling and exhaling. Now I won’t deny that their scale and scope derive from a spell, yes, but to put it plainly… that’s all you. I’m not sure what there is of you that can be suppressed.”
Folds of the raccoon’s black furred mask pressed against the underside of her eyes. “…The honesty is appreciated,” she sighed. The fresh trail of paw-shaped craters left in her wake did little to lift her mood.
“Maybe if I squint hard enough, I’ll see where I trampled over whatever hopes I had for this working itself out,” Morgan ruefully thought. Her shoulders bunched together at the sound of shingles rattling free from the roofs of the homes that they passed. They continued to do so at the sound of said shingles shattering against the crater pocked cobblestone below.
“This is going to get worse before it gets better, isn’t it?” she commented aloud. Cheeks flushed, the raccoon shyly wriggled and flexed her toes to knock free the mix of stone and mortar caught between them.
The panther’s rounded ears fwipped at Morgan’s palpable disappointment. “As I said, it’s still worth making an attempt. Lesser illusions can be broken by suffocating the magic that fuels them. It’s not unreasonable to think the same would apply to greater ones; no matter how convincing they may be. Uncertainty remains, and I intend to extinguish it.”
Tyridia’s legs trembled at the unseen shockwaves accompanying Morgan’s meteoric footfalls. Pointed teeth poking against his lips, he quietly forced out one sigh after another. No matter how hard he heaved or huffed the knotted weight in his chest refused to loosen.
“Soooo that’s why we’re making this detour?” Tyr feebly asked. His gaze drifted towards a lonely workshop, situated some blocks away from them, atop an otherwise barren lot of land. “Master?” he called out once more.
Arcs of magic roiled out from the plumes of smoke chugging from the soot stained chimney. Arrhythmic snaps sounded out repeatedly in a telltale sign of ether contracting and expanding violently.
Both the fox and raccoon audibly expressed their concern through clenched teeth upon approach. “Ahhh!” they both shrieked in unison at the explosive pop that radiated out from the heavy smoke lingering in the air. A faint whistling accompanied the mixture of hail and embers that promptly rained down upon them. Unsurprisingly, given the intensely localized inclement weather, only the hardiest of weeds and mosses dotted the equal parts damp and scorched earth around the shop.
Nadie’s continued lack of a reply left Tyridia understandably uneasy; he wasted no time pressing on with his inquiries. “So the more powerful the spell the more magic -- d-dark magic specifically -- needed to break it? That… that’s what you’re getting at, right?”
The panther flashed the fox a toothy smile. “Precisely. Darkness tainted mana crystals, dusk shards, lucid gems… I could go on and on. Do take note though, Tyridia. I’ll require your assistance keeping stock of what we will and won’t require. And carrying them to the counter.”
“Yes, Master,” Tyr dutifully answered. Lips pulled flat, the vulpine could already imagine his arms trying to tug themselves out of their sockets. Gods, he’d be lucky to survive the physical and emotional toll this day would surely wring from him. Yet… his brows furrowed angrily at the thought. I-it was for a good cause though. The best cause! Chin tucked against his neck, he peered back at his best friend and forced a smile for her. The lead tendrils, or at least what felt like such, coiling their way through his ribcage relaxed their grip when she returned the gesture.
Morgan’s smile didn’t last. Not when she couldn’t help but recoil at the damage she wrought by the simply walking.
“Sorry!” she apologized. Wincing, her lips pulled back at the sight of people stumbling into the craterous divots left by her tremendous toes. That or knocking their shins against the slabs of stone crumbling down from the wrinkles in her soles.
“Hmmph. I can do more than moan and groan at the very least…” Morgan reminded herself. Nostrils flared, she clenched her toes. The streams of rock came to a halt. Uncomfortable as it was, with jagged masses of mortar caught between the pinched tight folds of leathery flesh that lined the bottoms of her feet, she endured. Scrapes and sore pads were laughable inconveniences compared to the broken feet and twisted ankles everyone treading in her wake had to potentially contend with.
Toes curled, Morgan awkwardly lumbered forward. “Should we really be out and about on the town like this? Or…” the raccoon puffed up at strands of hair brushing against her forehead before correcting herself. “Better yet, should ‘I’? All I’m doing is making a mess.”
To her much needed relief, bumpy and uneven cobblestones finally gave way to flattened dirt. They had reached their destination. Sighing, Morgan splayed apart her toes. It was easy enough to ruin a road. Not so much a plot of dirt.
Nadie purred as she pondered. “That remains to be seen. Morgan, there’s no point in answering that until after an attempt is made at breaking the illusion. Know that regardless of the outcome I will not abandon you. And do recall… this town has recovered from worse,” the feline answered with a smirk.
Morgan advanced. With one footfall, fissures spread out beneath her feet. The parched earth, layered with ashen embers, coughed up clouds of dust and shriveled up grass roots. Another step forward yielded cool and pliant mud that molded around her sole. Damp clumps of moss tickled against her toes and tugged free the chunks of street caught between them.
“Knowing that I’m not the worst thing to ever wind my way through Yash isn’t exactly encouraging,” Morgan rumbled as she approached the workshop with whatever grace she could manage.
A series of loud knocks sounded out as the panther’s knuckles rapped against the entrance.
Shifting in place, Morgan idly crossed her arms and twiddled her fingers against her elbows, mindful not to scrape her shins against the shop’s slanted roof. “The help we’re looking for is here, right? I don’t know what will be left, if anything, of the streets if I have to make a return trip.” A sense of unease settled on her shoulders at the sight of her shadow swallowing up her friends.
Nadie’s answer was to ante up her rapping to forceful plank splitting pounding.
“Enough!” A cracking voice called out through the poorly fitting windows. Much to Morgan’s relief, the crackling plumes of smoke pouring from the chimney, shooting off spells roughly at her eye level, tapered off to smoky wisps. The battered, and now concave, door swung inward to reveal a shrew. She wrinkled her long whiskered nose in disgust at the hulking feline before her. “Ech. You. What do you want?”
“Your audience,” Nadie curtly replied. “And your wares, while we’re at it.” Tyridia peeked out from behind the panther’s broad form to timidly wave at their uncooperative acquaintance. “Your questionable curios and activities are allowed within Yash’s limits by yours truly, need I remind. Do not mistake my pragmatism for generosity, Blanca.”
The diminutive shopkeep dragged her bony fingers back and forth along her gnarled knuckles and grunted. Blanca’s long nails scratched at the various stains and burns that coated their fur-less surface. “Elaborate.”
Brows arched, the Yash guild master stepped to the side. Clawed toes, curled shyly and more than capable of smothering the most imposing of warriors beneath their padded undersides, loomed large behind her. “Umm. Hello,” the owner of said digits meekly answered.
Blanca’s beady little eyes narrowed at Nadie’s smirk. “Hmmph. Get in and get out.” Back turned to the panther, she slunk through the clutter that consumed her keep. A veritable labyrinth of wooden cabinets caked with a mixture of dust and ash stretched on up from the scratched floor to the bowed ceiling. A mixture of runes and chicken scratch carved into the individual drawers, one stacked atop the other, were the only hints offered as to the contents nestled within them.
“You heard her,” Nadie rumbled. Once inside, both the feline and fox batted aside the motes of dust that hovered within the rare rays of sunshine that managed to infiltrate the interior.
“I’ll uhh…” Morgan idly mused. “I’ll. Just. Stay here, I guess.”
“Make yourself as comfortable as you are able, Morgan. This will take a while.” Nadie’s rumbling purrs wafted up from the gaps in the shingled roof.
Bony elbows upon her countertop, Blanca flashed her tiny pointed teeth as she cupped a sunken cheek against her palm. Lingering puffs of smoke trailed up into the cracked open chimney turned ramshackle fume hood.
“Good to know,” the white mage glumly replied with eyes half lidded. Her spirit lifted, however briefly, with her curiosity. The massive raccoon couldn’t help but peer out at the expanse of rooftops that stretched out in every direction. It was… strange. Like looking out over a stone ocean. Chimneys piercing the slanted and static waves as if they were stoic and weathered lighthouses. Unsettling but… not altogether unpleasant seeing her home from such a vantage point.
“Ahhhh! A giant!”
Morgan reflexively rolled her eyes. Well, the lull in shrieks and screaming was nice while it lasted. “I can at least make it a little harder to stand out,” she mumbled as she slowly slumped down to a sitting position.
“Eep!” Mortified, the raccoon felt her clothing struggling to cover less and less of her. “Why do I keep crouching?” she chided herself under her breath. Lips pulled flat, Morgan swung her puffy tail up between her legs the instant those shredded cotton weaves came up above her waistline. Cheeks ablaze with embarrassment, she nervously circled around the shop and mouthed a profane prayer at the realization that not a single window graced the building’s backside. With a thoom, Morgan settled her exposed rump onto the mossy ground.
“You… you alright out there, Morgan?” Tyridia worriedly wondered as the shop shook.
Morgan cautiously considered her options as she weighed the balance between comfort and basic decency. “I will be when we fix this. If we fix this.”
Pensive growls emanated from within the shop. “Blanca, you know very well my sojourns here would be all the shorter if you would put any effort into organizing the place,” Nadie observed.
“And all the more frequent,” the shrew bitterly answered. “Why… it’s almost as if I’m trying to discourage you from doing so in the first place. If not outright stop you.”
Nadie’s thick black tail flit behind her contentedly. “You would not survive the attempt,” she casually commented.
The white mage slouched forward, the structure groaning when her thighs and bountiful behind pressed against it. Cheeks puffed out, Morgan dug her heels into the ground and pivoted her legs back and forth upon them. “Sometime today, please,” she mumbled under her breath.
“…That’s it?” Morgan asked dumbfounded.
“That’s it!” Nadie replied as she brushed her palms together. Black and purple wisps of ether trailed off her fingers whenever they clapped together.
The raccoon cocooned herself with the stretched out remnants of her robe while she curiously eyed the spell circle she stood within. “Huh. I... I’ll be honest, I had long since relegated myself to this not being the end result.” Her clawed toes, with some effort, ploughed through the damp earth when she curled them.
“No need to thank me,” the panther teased with eyes half-lidded.
Nostrils flared, the white mage clenched her eyelids shut to dam the waterworks threatening to well up from within her. She tried, and failed, to muster up a comeback.
“As I said,” Nadie spoke, “I will not abandon you. Now I’m not going to pretend that your ‘condition’ didn’t interest me but… you will always take priority over my research.” She laid a soft and heavy hand upon the raccoon’s shoulders and gently squeezed.
Morgan leaned into her guild master and nodded. “Mmhmmm,” she sniffled out as her head sank into and came to rest against a heavy padding of cloth.
The feline’s expression softened as purrs rumbled out from her throat. With some hesitation, she gingerly embraced her subordinate. “We’ll discuss this matter, and the costs associated with it, later. For now, head on inside and clean yourself up.”
“Yes, Master. I’ll uhh… Yeah,” Morgan replied as she hurriedly blinked away her tears. Huffing, she embarrassedly disengaged from her hug.
With a swish of her wrist Nadie motioned for the white mage to get gone. Her pale grey eyes followed along the curved and crisscrossing lines of chalk that spanned the length of the lot situated behind the Yash guild. Spent and faded magical crystals, plopped amongst tufts of grass and clods of dirt, lined the concentric chalk circles.
“Facsimile or no, interacting with a giant was an enlightening experience all the same! Especially a cooperative one,” the panther quietly ruminated. She turned her attention towards the raccoon. Nadie couldn’t help but wonder what similarities, if any, existed between the imagined giant and a bonafide one.
Robe, or what was left of it anyway, wrapped tightly around her chest, Morgan relished the sensation of clothing brushing against her fur once more. That her feet no longer thumped. Hell, no matter how hard she stamped her soles against the earth there were no paw prints, no craters, no nothing left in her wake! Although…
Morgan tapered to a halt. The white mage’s amber eyes couldn’t help but stare at the reminder, the depression in the ground, she had left on the trip here. Her own foot print, which was more than capable of swallowing the raccoon up to her knees, dwarfed her in both size and width. She shuddered at the sight. A thought, a frightening and ruinous what-if, what if she were careless or inattentive for but a moment, refused to leave her. Master and Tyridia both could have simply… disappeared, beneath her soles.
Teeth clenched, Morgan shook her head side to side to physically derail that line of thought. Aaaaaaaanyway. “See you inside?” she inquired of the fox.
“When Master is done with me, sure,” Tyr tiredly sighed. “I’ll… umm. M-make it up to you then?” His eyes locked with hers, the duo shared an awkward, yet not altogether unpleasant, moment.
The rumbling bass of Nadie’s thoughtful purrs brought them back to attention. “Tyridia, if you’d be so kind as to collect the crystals anchoring the circle,” she all but voluntold him.
“Yes, Master!” Tyr practically barked. He bid a shy wave to the raccoon before jogging to the panther’s side.
“See you then,” Morgan softly replied once the fox had wandered out of earshot. Shifting her weight from one paw to the other, she continued to linger outside among the shade. The air, heavy and stale, draped over Yash as it baked beneath the glower of the late afternoon sun. Breathing in deeply, dry air scratching at her throat and lungs, Morgan relished her return to normalcy. Just… just godssssss above it was wonderful to be swallowed up by, as opposed to swallowing up, the shadows for a change.
“This is nice,” the white mage reassured herself as she hmmmed and closed her eyes. “…But a fresh change of clothes would feel even better,” Morgan thought aloud. Ringed tail flitting behind her, she meandered into the guild hall to indulge in just that.
Dropping to his knees, Tyridia plucked up one colorless crystal after the next. Their translucent forms glittered in his palm as he panted in the heat. “Master, not that I doubted you or anything, but was there any sort of backup plan in place in case this didn’t work?”
“Sure wasn’t!” Nadie cheerily answered. “The amount of magic you managed to layer upon Morgan was well beyond even my most generous overestimations. Ideally, the ether we offered up would have been equal to the amount that had accumulated within Morgan. An effective one to one ratio where the amount of magic offered is equal to the amount of magic unwoven from her.”
Lips pursed, Tyr continued to hobble along the circumference of the spell circle, pinching crystals between his clawed fingers as he went. “Ideally?”
“That spell should not have succeeded. It did, much to my pleasant surprise, but it shouldn’t have. Then again, illusions, by their very nature, are typically quite frail and struggle to reconstitute themselves…”
That it worked at all was what mattered to Tyridia. A heaving sigh sputtered out from between his lips as he left Nadie to her own thoughts while he stewed amongst his own. After some time, he spoke. “Master? I… thank you.”
“Hmmmm?” Nadie grunted as she scuffed the soles of her boots against the dirt. Puffs of chalk and dust lingered around the panther’s ankles as she crudely cleared away the spell circle.
“For, you know, fixing my fuckup.” Wrinkles formed in the fur lining Tyr’s forehead as his expression soured. The fox turned his frustrations, at the problems that he caused and then proved incapable of fixing, inward at himself.
Nadie continued to drag her feet. “Tyridia,” the panther rumbled. “I want you to learn from your mistakes. Not dwell on them.”
Even with his eyes to the ground, Tyr could feel her steely gaze upon him. Her patience for the sad sack routine had worn thin. That, and, come to think of it, his had too. “Y-yes, Master,” he fumbled out in reply.
NEXT
Enlarged and embarrassed, Morgan strives to go about her day all the same! To mixed results.
As folks may have noticed over the past couple of weeks, I've been posting lots of art starring a very large and lovely raccoon lass by the name of Morgan! Like say...
Wumbo White Mage
Cramped Quarters
Crowded Campsite
Hallway Filling Hips
A Huffy Handful
She hails from my ongoing story, Shady Impressions, and some time back she featured in a very silly side story, Illicit Illusions, that rendered her quite ginormous! This here story wraps up that loose end that left her stranded and rather loomy.
This was definitely something new for me, as it is series of scenes and vignettes that accompanies a lot of pictures and tells an overarching story of Morgan going about her day, and I hope it turned out well! Actually had to split this up into two posts as I wrote so darn much it can't be contained in one!
And of course, incredible icon comes courtesy of
watchoutfordragons!Sizable Reservations: Real and Imagined
By: RaddaRaem
“Sooooooooooo,” Tyridia trailed on. Faint green stains accumulated upon his sandals as his feet scuffed against the blades of grass lining the sides of the trail.
Morgan’s subdued footfalls, thunderous and earth-shaking, spanned the entirety of the pebble lined path leading to Yash. “So?” she replied. The sheer volume of air displaced by her broad padded soles sent clouds of dirt swirling around the giantess’ ankles following her every seismic step.
Tyr clenched his eyes shut when he walked into yet another lingering puff of dust; his muzzle scrunched in irritation as the particulate matter mottled his bright orange fur. “So, umm… what exactly are we going to do? When we get back to Yash, I mean?” The foxy summoner dared to inquire.
Black lips pulled flat, the white mage offered up a subdued shrug. “Head back to the guild and touch base with Master? Like we always do?” Both her tone and expression were incredulous.
“No! No, I-I mean. Well.” Whining, his eyes swiveled side to side along the bottoms of their sockets. “Yes, I get that, but just the whole… you. You know.” He awkwardly gestured at her enormous everything.
“Tyr, be honest.” Arms at her sides, Morgan swished her open palms through the air and splayed her fingers apart with a forced flourish. “What else are we supposed to do? We can’t very well just wait this out. Okay so technically, yes, we could. But for how long?”
Clawed fingertips scratched at the back of the fox’s flattened ears. “I would think, I-I mean, I would hope a spell this potent would burn itself off over the day. Maybe Xisssss-” At the mere mention of the kitsune’s name Tyridia felt himself wilting under the gravity of Morgan’s glower. Tongue pressed against the roof his mouth, a whistle wafted out between his lips as he struggled to salvage his train of thought. “-ssssssss is better left to Master.”
Eyes half-lidded, the muscles in Morgan’s cheeks strained as her lips tugged to the side in a display of equal parts dismissiveness and disgust. “Like I said… what else are we supposed to do?”
The fox’s white tipped tail shyly flit side to side before tucking itself between his legs. “Yeah. Yeahhhhhhhh. That and Master would justifiably wonder where and why we wandered off for the day.” His shoulders slouched at the thought of being chewed out by the greying panther.
“You know she’d be hard pressed to believe we were waiting out an illusion made real short of showing her,” Morgan mumbled. The raccoon distracted herself from her sizeable predicament, for at least the moment, by puffing up at a long lock of hair dangling before her face. Wrinkles formed in the black mask of fur that wrapped around her amber eyes as she alternated between huffs and puffs.
“To be fair…” Tyridia tapered off. His thoughts struggled to form themselves into coherent sentences as his legs burned from treading into and out of paw-shaped depressions in the earth left in Morgan’s wake. The thick raccoon feet responsible for them, all but obscuring his vision with their padded heels and soles, weren’t helping. “This… uh… t-this is downright tame compared to what we’ve been wrangling with lately thanks in no small part to Russo! There’s been what… demons and deities and who knows what else!”
Morgan brushed back the uncooperative strand of hair and took to rolling her all but exposed shoulders. Tattered tufts of white cotton sailed away on the breeze as every swing of the raccoon’s arms ripped her robe’s sleeves well beyond recognition. “I really could see her giving us a pass on this, not that we need it. And besides, you did offer to cover for me today. Not tomorrow or the day after. Today.”
“It’s not like I was trying to back out of it or anything…” Tyr smarted. The stinging barbs, and rumbling octaves, of her spoken words hung heavily on his shoulders. As did the guilt and shame of flubbing up a spell so spectacularly that he temporarily rendered his best friend a behemoth.
Tyridia forced the welling lump in his throat down with a hard swallow. A-a beautiful behemoth, at that. Try as he might to force his gaze downward at his feet, and the sun bleached straps of leather wrapped around them, his grassy green eyes always managed to drift onwards and upwards towards Morgan. “Noooooo,” he uselessly chastised himself as he looked upon those toned and shapely legs that dwarfed him in thickness. “No no no no no,” Tyr ashamedly sussed at himself as he continued to ogle those lumbering grey furred limbs that subtly tensed with every step.
T-this was his best friend he was leering at for goodness sakes! His bignormous best friend whose soft and rounded ankles came up to his chin. Said ankles connecting to broad black soled paws that revealed themselves every time she stepped forward. “Stoppit, stoppit, stoppit,” Tyridia helplessly repeated as did anything but that and dutifully took note of the faint layer of dirt caking her soles. That and the overwhelming warmth radiating off of their fox smothering surfaces. T-then of course how could he neglect the steady hiss of pebbles, sputtering free from the wrinkled folds of flesh lining the bottom of her paws?
Tyridia sighed bitterly and ran his hands up along his fuzzy cream cheeks before cupping his palms against his eyes. His fingers clamped together as he steadfastly denied himself yet another sneak peek. This was going to be a long day. “Where should we start?” he mumbled into his palms.
“If we’re lucky, maybe Master will be able to fix this? Magical suppression is her bread and butter after all. I would think… I would hope, cancelling out an illusion is something she’s more than capable of,” Morgan mulled aloud while her ringed tail wrapped itself around her waist. She abruptly eeped when a balmy gust of wind all but goosed her, prompting the wumbo white mage’s teeth to clack together at an uncomfortable realization; her ill-fitting robe didn’t cover her behind so much as it rested atop it. Gods above, no wonder Tyridia could hardly bring himself to look at her.
An uneasy groan exposed the first cracks in Morgan’s otherwise composed veneer as her padded fingers clutched comfortingly at her puffy appendage. “And if she can’t… we can always count on her to keep our noses to the grindstone. Errr. Your nose to the grindstone, anyway. It’ll be something familiar at least.”
“Hope for the best and assume the worst?” the fox wryly smirked even as he continued to stare into the padded palms pressed against his face.
Morgan allowed a shy smile to crease her lips. Her embarrassment slowly gave way to affection. “Don’t be getting all defeatist on me! Yet, anyway. Save that for if Master – and hopefully hopefully hopefully not when -- dashes those hopes faster than we can raise them. Deal?”
“Deal,” Tyridia timidly acquiesced as his white tipped tail took to swishing to and fro behind him.
“Hey there!” Hand held up in a placating manner, Morgan waved at the dumbfounded merchant stationed along Yash’s outskirts. Wide-eyed, the wolf stared back up at her. His jaw parted as a drawn out vowel proceeded to rumble forth from his maw.
“Please don’t scream! Please. Please,” she implored. The colossal raccoon pedaled backwards as daintily as she could manage. The tiny shack violently rattled in place all the same.
The screaming continued unabated.
Morgan continued to distance herself. “No harm no foul, see? It’s uhh… well actually it’s a pretty short story but trust me when I say I’m not a giant! Not usually, anyway. Heck, I’m a returning customer even!”
In response, the screaming grew even louder.
Tyridia forced a nervous smile. “At least he hasn’t run off? Better he does this than start a panic.” Arms crossed about his chest, Tyridia rubbed his hands along the sleeves of his kimono.
“Tyr, I know you’re trying to be supportive,” Morgan sighed as she slouched forward. “But this isn’t exactly something I want to be congratulated about. Literally paralyzing someone with fear.” Her lips pulled down into a frown at the stubbornly persistent wails. “You’re going to have to breathe sometime. You do know that, right?”
Strained coughs sounded out when the cowardly wolf finally emptied his lungs. A welcome silence filled the air as he flopped forward onto his selection of mana crystals and panted.
“Want me to go grab Master before he gets started again?” Tyridia inquired. The fox grimaced when the merchant feebly patted at his chest.
“Please do,” Morgan replied. Nostrils flared, she drew deeply from the air around her in an attempt to soothe her sagging spirits. Or tried to, at least. A pronounced rrrrrrip emanated out from her chest as her lungs inflated.
“Ummm…” Tyridia swallowed hard.
The white mage’s eyes cratered to the bottom of their sockets and warily regarded her now exposed cleavage. Dread clutched at both her chest, and throat, as her panicked heart pounded against the back of her ribcage, her bosom bouncing with every beat. Continued rrrrrrips and tiny tears spread throughout what remained of her robe every time they did so.
Arms draped uselessly at his sides Tyr ogled those grey furred hills threatening to flood forth. The fine fabric levees barely holding back his best friend’s petite bosom showed signs of strain as the white walls of cloth spread themselves dangerously thin.
Morgan exhaled slowly and with restraint. “Please hurry,” she groaned out in between her noticeably shallower breaths.
Head nodding furiously, Tyridia turned tail and hauled ass.
The colossal racoon’s pointed ears twitched when the clapping of the fox’s sandals against his soles soon was joined by the soft tunk of leather on cobblestone. At least he was making good progress.
Limbs trembling, the cowed wolf could barely muster the energy to whine much less scream.
The white mage bit down into her lower lip. When faced with curses most foul and diabolical demons she never once wavered. Yet here she was choking up at the possibility of a freaking wardrobe malfunction? “Shameful,” Morgan chided herself under her breath. “Absolutely shameful.” Like hell she was going to let her revealing attire, or her imposing and unwieldy stature, stop her from doing what needed to be done.
Clearing her throat, the raccoon turned her attention towards the solemn duties required of her as a proper white mage. “Hey uhh… you. It might not look it but I’m a white mage by trade! See?” Dropping to a crouch, her eyebrows flattened when, unsurprisingly, her clothing kept on covering less and less of her. Morgan inhaled through her teeth when she felt her tattered robe pull up along her back. While the breeze was nice, she didn’t terribly enjoy feeling it brush against her exposed butt cheeks.
A faint groan escaped from the canine’s throat.
With a roll of her eyes, Morgan extended an open palm out to the wolf. Soothing wisps of energy trailed off her padded digits as she channeled a simple Cure spell. The faint and smoky ether twirled along errant puffs of wind and ultimately dissipated within the moisture laden air as a pale white aura came to engulf her hand upon completion of the casting. “Please, let me help! I can put your wearied soul to rest and-” Oh gods. Cheeks puffed out, she watched the wolf shiver as her shadow swallowed up him and his ho-hum shop. Phrasing, Morgan, phrasing.
“No no no no I didn’t mean like…” The raccoon sighed bitterly. ”Alright look, I’ll make this quick. Wait. Oh, dammit. You know what I’ll just stop talking.” Reaching forward, she achingly maneuvered an outstretched finger towards him. Translucent beads of ether congealed upon her padded fingertip as the white mage guided it into the open-air stall. A faint pressure pressed against her warm leathery flesh when she made contact. “There!”
Her wrist gone stiff, Morgan cautiously retracted her hand while an inviting glow filled the structure as plumes of purple trailed off his shoulders. Blinking repeatedly, the canine pulled himself off his wares and regarded his continued existence with disbelief.
Morgan couldn’t help but smile when the merchant’s stress figuratively and literally melted away. “Better?” she asked.
The wolf replied with subdued nods while he shakily dusted himself off and rearranged his scattered wares.
“Good.” Her lips curled into a smile as her ringtail wrapped itself around her ankles.
Before the otherwise one-sided exchange could drag itself on into an awkward silence a mismatched pair of footfalls registered in the raccoon’s ears. “Please be them please be them please be them,” Morgan pleaded under her breath.
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you, Tyridia. You have the benefit of my doubt after all! Why else would I have accompanied you out here?” The panther gently elbowed the flustered fox at her side.
“That’ll leave a bruise…” Tyr mumbled under his breath as he nursed his sore shoulder. “Thanks, Master. It’s just… a lot to take in is all!”
Nadie’s long legs stomped to a halt when she breached Yash’s informal boundaries. The panther took to stroking the salty white patches of fuzz that lined her otherwise black furred chin and hrmmed. “So she is.”
Even when crouching Morgan still managed to shame every structure in the immediate vicinity in terms of sheer size.
The Yash guild master’s steely grey eyes slowly swung back and forth between her sizeable subordinate and the forgotten outposts that lined Yash’s outskirts. Were the panther to climb atop their ramshackle roofs she still wouldn’t be eye level with the poor girl…
“Oh thank goodness,” Morgan heaved in relief. Arm crossed about her chest, forearm covering her cleavage, she shyly took to waving at her guild mate and guild master with her free hand. The simple motion of swinging her limb side to side sent gusts, along with pebbles and stray splinters peeled from the merchant’s stall, tumbling towards them.
Brows arched, a nonplussed expression creased Nadie’s features as the cape of her cloak fluttered behind her. “If this is but a remarkably convincing illusion I would peg it well beyond your current capabilities. No offense, Tyridia.”
“None taken, Master.”
Nadie smirked and took to waving back at Morgan as she sauntered towards her. “I will admit. I’m conflicted as to whether to cheer or chide the both of you. Blurring the lines between what’s real and imagined is a fantastic feat! Now how you chose to do so, granted, is… questionable.”
“I knowwwwwwwwwwww,” the fox groaned. “I know, I know, I know.” Head hanging low, Tyridia’s gaze settled on his clawed toes twiddling against the dark divots in his sandal’s soles. His ears burned hot at the mere thought of Morgan and her amplified… everything. Tyr winced when the low and pitiful whine rumbling out from his throat was interrupted by Nadie’s thick palm slapping against his back.
“You feel guilty. You feel ashamed. You feel responsible for what has transpired. Tyridia, do not be mistaken. I am proud to know you feel as such. To know that you’ve cultivated such a fine tuned moral compass. But now is not the time to wallow. Reflect later. Act now.” Squeezing firmly at the scruff of his neck, Nadie forced the foxy summoner to match her pace, all the while her thick black kitty tail undulated behind her in betrayal of her inquisitive intentions. “Come, child. Let’s do what we can for her.”
“Do you really think this will work, Master?” Morgan asked. Her eyes rolled about their sockets at every ahhhhh, eeeeeek, and ooooooh directed her way.
Leading the raccoon, Nadie doled out half-hearted waves and knowing nods to every anxious passerby. “At ease. She’s with me,” she purred out ad nauseam. The panther’s commanding presence and confident composure snuffed out any semblance of an outright panic from settling upon the streets. Even so, a palpable unease lingered in the humid air.
“To answer your question, no,” Nadie tersely stated in between reassurances. “However, it’s worth a shot all the same. Suppressing spells is a straightforward affair. Smothering finely crafted ether, regardless of what form it takes, is a trivial matter thanks to the swarms of shadow that blanket the land. Problem is… the thunder of your footfalls and the breeze upon your breath are no spells. That is the swing of your step; the unthinking act of inhaling and exhaling. Now I won’t deny that their scale and scope derive from a spell, yes, but to put it plainly… that’s all you. I’m not sure what there is of you that can be suppressed.”
Folds of the raccoon’s black furred mask pressed against the underside of her eyes. “…The honesty is appreciated,” she sighed. The fresh trail of paw-shaped craters left in her wake did little to lift her mood.
“Maybe if I squint hard enough, I’ll see where I trampled over whatever hopes I had for this working itself out,” Morgan ruefully thought. Her shoulders bunched together at the sound of shingles rattling free from the roofs of the homes that they passed. They continued to do so at the sound of said shingles shattering against the crater pocked cobblestone below.
“This is going to get worse before it gets better, isn’t it?” she commented aloud. Cheeks flushed, the raccoon shyly wriggled and flexed her toes to knock free the mix of stone and mortar caught between them.
The panther’s rounded ears fwipped at Morgan’s palpable disappointment. “As I said, it’s still worth making an attempt. Lesser illusions can be broken by suffocating the magic that fuels them. It’s not unreasonable to think the same would apply to greater ones; no matter how convincing they may be. Uncertainty remains, and I intend to extinguish it.”
Tyridia’s legs trembled at the unseen shockwaves accompanying Morgan’s meteoric footfalls. Pointed teeth poking against his lips, he quietly forced out one sigh after another. No matter how hard he heaved or huffed the knotted weight in his chest refused to loosen.
“Soooo that’s why we’re making this detour?” Tyr feebly asked. His gaze drifted towards a lonely workshop, situated some blocks away from them, atop an otherwise barren lot of land. “Master?” he called out once more.
Arcs of magic roiled out from the plumes of smoke chugging from the soot stained chimney. Arrhythmic snaps sounded out repeatedly in a telltale sign of ether contracting and expanding violently.
Both the fox and raccoon audibly expressed their concern through clenched teeth upon approach. “Ahhh!” they both shrieked in unison at the explosive pop that radiated out from the heavy smoke lingering in the air. A faint whistling accompanied the mixture of hail and embers that promptly rained down upon them. Unsurprisingly, given the intensely localized inclement weather, only the hardiest of weeds and mosses dotted the equal parts damp and scorched earth around the shop.
Nadie’s continued lack of a reply left Tyridia understandably uneasy; he wasted no time pressing on with his inquiries. “So the more powerful the spell the more magic -- d-dark magic specifically -- needed to break it? That… that’s what you’re getting at, right?”
The panther flashed the fox a toothy smile. “Precisely. Darkness tainted mana crystals, dusk shards, lucid gems… I could go on and on. Do take note though, Tyridia. I’ll require your assistance keeping stock of what we will and won’t require. And carrying them to the counter.”
“Yes, Master,” Tyr dutifully answered. Lips pulled flat, the vulpine could already imagine his arms trying to tug themselves out of their sockets. Gods, he’d be lucky to survive the physical and emotional toll this day would surely wring from him. Yet… his brows furrowed angrily at the thought. I-it was for a good cause though. The best cause! Chin tucked against his neck, he peered back at his best friend and forced a smile for her. The lead tendrils, or at least what felt like such, coiling their way through his ribcage relaxed their grip when she returned the gesture.
Morgan’s smile didn’t last. Not when she couldn’t help but recoil at the damage she wrought by the simply walking.
“Sorry!” she apologized. Wincing, her lips pulled back at the sight of people stumbling into the craterous divots left by her tremendous toes. That or knocking their shins against the slabs of stone crumbling down from the wrinkles in her soles.
“Hmmph. I can do more than moan and groan at the very least…” Morgan reminded herself. Nostrils flared, she clenched her toes. The streams of rock came to a halt. Uncomfortable as it was, with jagged masses of mortar caught between the pinched tight folds of leathery flesh that lined the bottoms of her feet, she endured. Scrapes and sore pads were laughable inconveniences compared to the broken feet and twisted ankles everyone treading in her wake had to potentially contend with.
Toes curled, Morgan awkwardly lumbered forward. “Should we really be out and about on the town like this? Or…” the raccoon puffed up at strands of hair brushing against her forehead before correcting herself. “Better yet, should ‘I’? All I’m doing is making a mess.”
To her much needed relief, bumpy and uneven cobblestones finally gave way to flattened dirt. They had reached their destination. Sighing, Morgan splayed apart her toes. It was easy enough to ruin a road. Not so much a plot of dirt.
Nadie purred as she pondered. “That remains to be seen. Morgan, there’s no point in answering that until after an attempt is made at breaking the illusion. Know that regardless of the outcome I will not abandon you. And do recall… this town has recovered from worse,” the feline answered with a smirk.
Morgan advanced. With one footfall, fissures spread out beneath her feet. The parched earth, layered with ashen embers, coughed up clouds of dust and shriveled up grass roots. Another step forward yielded cool and pliant mud that molded around her sole. Damp clumps of moss tickled against her toes and tugged free the chunks of street caught between them.
“Knowing that I’m not the worst thing to ever wind my way through Yash isn’t exactly encouraging,” Morgan rumbled as she approached the workshop with whatever grace she could manage.
A series of loud knocks sounded out as the panther’s knuckles rapped against the entrance.
Shifting in place, Morgan idly crossed her arms and twiddled her fingers against her elbows, mindful not to scrape her shins against the shop’s slanted roof. “The help we’re looking for is here, right? I don’t know what will be left, if anything, of the streets if I have to make a return trip.” A sense of unease settled on her shoulders at the sight of her shadow swallowing up her friends.
Nadie’s answer was to ante up her rapping to forceful plank splitting pounding.
“Enough!” A cracking voice called out through the poorly fitting windows. Much to Morgan’s relief, the crackling plumes of smoke pouring from the chimney, shooting off spells roughly at her eye level, tapered off to smoky wisps. The battered, and now concave, door swung inward to reveal a shrew. She wrinkled her long whiskered nose in disgust at the hulking feline before her. “Ech. You. What do you want?”
“Your audience,” Nadie curtly replied. “And your wares, while we’re at it.” Tyridia peeked out from behind the panther’s broad form to timidly wave at their uncooperative acquaintance. “Your questionable curios and activities are allowed within Yash’s limits by yours truly, need I remind. Do not mistake my pragmatism for generosity, Blanca.”
The diminutive shopkeep dragged her bony fingers back and forth along her gnarled knuckles and grunted. Blanca’s long nails scratched at the various stains and burns that coated their fur-less surface. “Elaborate.”
Brows arched, the Yash guild master stepped to the side. Clawed toes, curled shyly and more than capable of smothering the most imposing of warriors beneath their padded undersides, loomed large behind her. “Umm. Hello,” the owner of said digits meekly answered.
Blanca’s beady little eyes narrowed at Nadie’s smirk. “Hmmph. Get in and get out.” Back turned to the panther, she slunk through the clutter that consumed her keep. A veritable labyrinth of wooden cabinets caked with a mixture of dust and ash stretched on up from the scratched floor to the bowed ceiling. A mixture of runes and chicken scratch carved into the individual drawers, one stacked atop the other, were the only hints offered as to the contents nestled within them.
“You heard her,” Nadie rumbled. Once inside, both the feline and fox batted aside the motes of dust that hovered within the rare rays of sunshine that managed to infiltrate the interior.
“I’ll uhh…” Morgan idly mused. “I’ll. Just. Stay here, I guess.”
“Make yourself as comfortable as you are able, Morgan. This will take a while.” Nadie’s rumbling purrs wafted up from the gaps in the shingled roof.
Bony elbows upon her countertop, Blanca flashed her tiny pointed teeth as she cupped a sunken cheek against her palm. Lingering puffs of smoke trailed up into the cracked open chimney turned ramshackle fume hood.
“Good to know,” the white mage glumly replied with eyes half lidded. Her spirit lifted, however briefly, with her curiosity. The massive raccoon couldn’t help but peer out at the expanse of rooftops that stretched out in every direction. It was… strange. Like looking out over a stone ocean. Chimneys piercing the slanted and static waves as if they were stoic and weathered lighthouses. Unsettling but… not altogether unpleasant seeing her home from such a vantage point.
“Ahhhh! A giant!”
Morgan reflexively rolled her eyes. Well, the lull in shrieks and screaming was nice while it lasted. “I can at least make it a little harder to stand out,” she mumbled as she slowly slumped down to a sitting position.
“Eep!” Mortified, the raccoon felt her clothing struggling to cover less and less of her. “Why do I keep crouching?” she chided herself under her breath. Lips pulled flat, Morgan swung her puffy tail up between her legs the instant those shredded cotton weaves came up above her waistline. Cheeks ablaze with embarrassment, she nervously circled around the shop and mouthed a profane prayer at the realization that not a single window graced the building’s backside. With a thoom, Morgan settled her exposed rump onto the mossy ground.
“You… you alright out there, Morgan?” Tyridia worriedly wondered as the shop shook.
Morgan cautiously considered her options as she weighed the balance between comfort and basic decency. “I will be when we fix this. If we fix this.”
Pensive growls emanated from within the shop. “Blanca, you know very well my sojourns here would be all the shorter if you would put any effort into organizing the place,” Nadie observed.
“And all the more frequent,” the shrew bitterly answered. “Why… it’s almost as if I’m trying to discourage you from doing so in the first place. If not outright stop you.”
Nadie’s thick black tail flit behind her contentedly. “You would not survive the attempt,” she casually commented.
The white mage slouched forward, the structure groaning when her thighs and bountiful behind pressed against it. Cheeks puffed out, Morgan dug her heels into the ground and pivoted her legs back and forth upon them. “Sometime today, please,” she mumbled under her breath.
“…That’s it?” Morgan asked dumbfounded.
“That’s it!” Nadie replied as she brushed her palms together. Black and purple wisps of ether trailed off her fingers whenever they clapped together.
The raccoon cocooned herself with the stretched out remnants of her robe while she curiously eyed the spell circle she stood within. “Huh. I... I’ll be honest, I had long since relegated myself to this not being the end result.” Her clawed toes, with some effort, ploughed through the damp earth when she curled them.
“No need to thank me,” the panther teased with eyes half-lidded.
Nostrils flared, the white mage clenched her eyelids shut to dam the waterworks threatening to well up from within her. She tried, and failed, to muster up a comeback.
“As I said,” Nadie spoke, “I will not abandon you. Now I’m not going to pretend that your ‘condition’ didn’t interest me but… you will always take priority over my research.” She laid a soft and heavy hand upon the raccoon’s shoulders and gently squeezed.
Morgan leaned into her guild master and nodded. “Mmhmmm,” she sniffled out as her head sank into and came to rest against a heavy padding of cloth.
The feline’s expression softened as purrs rumbled out from her throat. With some hesitation, she gingerly embraced her subordinate. “We’ll discuss this matter, and the costs associated with it, later. For now, head on inside and clean yourself up.”
“Yes, Master. I’ll uhh… Yeah,” Morgan replied as she hurriedly blinked away her tears. Huffing, she embarrassedly disengaged from her hug.
With a swish of her wrist Nadie motioned for the white mage to get gone. Her pale grey eyes followed along the curved and crisscrossing lines of chalk that spanned the length of the lot situated behind the Yash guild. Spent and faded magical crystals, plopped amongst tufts of grass and clods of dirt, lined the concentric chalk circles.
“Facsimile or no, interacting with a giant was an enlightening experience all the same! Especially a cooperative one,” the panther quietly ruminated. She turned her attention towards the raccoon. Nadie couldn’t help but wonder what similarities, if any, existed between the imagined giant and a bonafide one.
Robe, or what was left of it anyway, wrapped tightly around her chest, Morgan relished the sensation of clothing brushing against her fur once more. That her feet no longer thumped. Hell, no matter how hard she stamped her soles against the earth there were no paw prints, no craters, no nothing left in her wake! Although…
Morgan tapered to a halt. The white mage’s amber eyes couldn’t help but stare at the reminder, the depression in the ground, she had left on the trip here. Her own foot print, which was more than capable of swallowing the raccoon up to her knees, dwarfed her in both size and width. She shuddered at the sight. A thought, a frightening and ruinous what-if, what if she were careless or inattentive for but a moment, refused to leave her. Master and Tyridia both could have simply… disappeared, beneath her soles.
Teeth clenched, Morgan shook her head side to side to physically derail that line of thought. Aaaaaaaanyway. “See you inside?” she inquired of the fox.
“When Master is done with me, sure,” Tyr tiredly sighed. “I’ll… umm. M-make it up to you then?” His eyes locked with hers, the duo shared an awkward, yet not altogether unpleasant, moment.
The rumbling bass of Nadie’s thoughtful purrs brought them back to attention. “Tyridia, if you’d be so kind as to collect the crystals anchoring the circle,” she all but voluntold him.
“Yes, Master!” Tyr practically barked. He bid a shy wave to the raccoon before jogging to the panther’s side.
“See you then,” Morgan softly replied once the fox had wandered out of earshot. Shifting her weight from one paw to the other, she continued to linger outside among the shade. The air, heavy and stale, draped over Yash as it baked beneath the glower of the late afternoon sun. Breathing in deeply, dry air scratching at her throat and lungs, Morgan relished her return to normalcy. Just… just godssssss above it was wonderful to be swallowed up by, as opposed to swallowing up, the shadows for a change.
“This is nice,” the white mage reassured herself as she hmmmed and closed her eyes. “…But a fresh change of clothes would feel even better,” Morgan thought aloud. Ringed tail flitting behind her, she meandered into the guild hall to indulge in just that.
Dropping to his knees, Tyridia plucked up one colorless crystal after the next. Their translucent forms glittered in his palm as he panted in the heat. “Master, not that I doubted you or anything, but was there any sort of backup plan in place in case this didn’t work?”
“Sure wasn’t!” Nadie cheerily answered. “The amount of magic you managed to layer upon Morgan was well beyond even my most generous overestimations. Ideally, the ether we offered up would have been equal to the amount that had accumulated within Morgan. An effective one to one ratio where the amount of magic offered is equal to the amount of magic unwoven from her.”
Lips pursed, Tyr continued to hobble along the circumference of the spell circle, pinching crystals between his clawed fingers as he went. “Ideally?”
“That spell should not have succeeded. It did, much to my pleasant surprise, but it shouldn’t have. Then again, illusions, by their very nature, are typically quite frail and struggle to reconstitute themselves…”
That it worked at all was what mattered to Tyridia. A heaving sigh sputtered out from between his lips as he left Nadie to her own thoughts while he stewed amongst his own. After some time, he spoke. “Master? I… thank you.”
“Hmmmm?” Nadie grunted as she scuffed the soles of her boots against the dirt. Puffs of chalk and dust lingered around the panther’s ankles as she crudely cleared away the spell circle.
“For, you know, fixing my fuckup.” Wrinkles formed in the fur lining Tyr’s forehead as his expression soured. The fox turned his frustrations, at the problems that he caused and then proved incapable of fixing, inward at himself.
Nadie continued to drag her feet. “Tyridia,” the panther rumbled. “I want you to learn from your mistakes. Not dwell on them.”
Even with his eyes to the ground, Tyr could feel her steely gaze upon him. Her patience for the sad sack routine had worn thin. That, and, come to think of it, his had too. “Y-yes, Master,” he fumbled out in reply.
NEXT
Category Story / Macro / Micro
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