“Like this?” Aileas, an arctic fox lady, stated, as the screenshot of her current progress was uploaded. She was in a voicechat with Ning, a tigress, at the time, and the latter was giving her tips on anatomy for the picture she was working on, a commission that Lehua, her red fox friend, bought a few days earlier.

“Yeah, that looks right, except that, the, uh, whatever that purple cat thing is called, doesn’t its tail split farther down than that?”

“Oh!” Aileas immediately spotted the minor error. “Thanks, Ning.” She corrected it, then sent a new screenshot. “That look right?”

“Definitely.”

“Thanks, Ning.”

“Anytime, Aileas. Let me know if you need any more help.”

“Will do,” she said disconnected, and took her headset off. With the linework completed, she started coloring her work, so into it that she didn’t notice that somebody was at the door until they knocked, at which she nearly jumped through the ceiling. The knocking slowly increased in intensity, and she realized that it whoever it was wasn’t going to go away until they got a response. With an annoyed grunt, she went downstairs and opened the door, and was greeted by a rather burly human holding a bag full of brochures. Oh, for the sake of whatever god is up there…

“Hello, miss,” and then he took off in an impossibly fast voice. “We are selling a whole new,” and then he started talking so fast that it was impossible to not only distinguish individual words, but even syllables became undifferentiated.

She interrupted him with a “no, thank you,” and immediately closed the door. “Ugh, salesmen,” she muttered, turning around and heading back upstairs.







Taking a walk through the woods to clear her head, Aileas was surprised when she picked up Lehua’s scent. She found him down by one of the small ponds, looking out over it. “Hi, Aileas,” he said over his shoulder on hearing her approach.

“Hello,” she replied, approaching him.

“How’s the commission going?”

“Oh, quite fine, actually. Linework is done, the underlying color layers are done, too. I just needed a little break.”

The two foxes talked for a while about art and writing, then sat in silence, taking in the quietness of the pond and surrounding forest. The sun began to set when they both stood and headed home, not quite saying goodbye yet as they lived next to each other. Lehua broke away from her a little after they turned on to the street, as his home was the further up it, but Aileas froze in place as soon as she saw her door.

It was busted down. Without a second thought she rushed in, immediately hearing somebody rummaging around.

“Who is there!?” She yelled, angrier than she’d ever remembered herself being.

“Shut it, lady!” A man called from upstairs. She heard her mirror shatter on the floor, followed by the same man muttering something like, “this looks pretty valuable.”

Aileas charged upstairs, seeing nothing but black. She found him going through her room, carelessly throwing various things into a potato sack. And then she noticed that it was the salesman from before. “Put my stuff back. Right. Now.” Her lips pulled all the way back, and her throat was vibrating in a very deep growl.

“Don’t growl at me, you stupid animal! You shouldn’t even have a right to-”

Aileas struck him right in his temple, and he went down at once, stunned. At once, the spot she struck started to turn green and gain a papery texture. “You want money so badly? Then why don’t you become it!?”

He tried to protest, but no sound came from his mouth. The green spread, and his body began to segment and fall apart into one-dollar bills. His entire form rapidly disintegrated, limbs flailing about until they, too, came apart. Soon, there was nothing but a pile of money, most of it still inside the former human’s clothes. She considered for a moment, then she converted the clothes as well.



* * * * * *



It had been several days, and the poor salesman had been sitting in a charity bin somewhere, always hoping he’d be able to turn back soon, but as time went by, his mind slowly, slowly eroded, and now there was nothing in his mind but “turn back soon,” the meaning of which he was no longer capable of grasping.

The last thing he ever experienced before falling into oblivion was each part of him being taken out of the bin and counted.

Then, one day, purely by coincidence, a few of those dollars ended up in Lehua’s hands, and he spent them on another commission, again for Aileas.