Thank you to casualspacetrash Akira_kitsune_682 and DA user Regolith247 for volunteering their respective characters, Penny Plasma, Joseph Marsh, and Sivanna!

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The time had come. A thick, circular mattress made of woven straw, ten meters across, had been laid in the center of the forest clearing. A ring of chairs had been set around it, with a gap every ninety degrees, oriented in the geological cardinal directions. A thick, fluffy blanket of moss lay beneath, and above, rain clouds were approaching. Behind two openings, opposite each other, one led to a banquet table, while the other led to a table on which various foods and utensils were waiting to be served. With the setup complete, the volunteers withdrew to the large tents flanking the setup, one behind either opening in the chairs that didn’t lead to the food and banquet table, two of them to each tent. Inside the east tent, a fox anthro named Chester stood at the center, pulling on a robe that bore a mixture of designs from many cultures, representing his far-reaching ancestry. Native American tribes from the Great Lakes and the Southeastern Woodlands, Celtic, Germanic, Romantic, Slavic, and West African.

He looked over his shoulder at one of his assistants, a human named Joseph, and smiled. “How do I look?” he asked.

Joseph smiled back. “You look amazing in it,” they replied. They stepped a few paces away to pick up the elk hide drum they were intended to carry for the actual ritual. The other assistant, a white-and-cream wolf named Sivanna, already had his snare in one arm, tapping away on it with the other hand, making absolutely sure that they had the song memorized. Chester went to examine himself in the mirror, turning around to see himself and the robes from every possible angle. It was one thing to design one’s own wedding outfit, but to be wearing it? Chester was still trying to convince himself that he wasn’t dreaming.

“You two are sure that you have the song down, right?”

“We do,” they both replied.

“Good, because now, the next part comes. Sivanna goes first. Please look into my eyes.” He turned a bit to his right as they stepped into view, making eye contact. Chester stepped closer, as his own transformation magic had a rather short range, and once of was close enough, his eyes began to glow. Sivanna shuddered as the spell took hold and as his fur, white, cream, dark orange and deep purple, changed to a mixture of white and tan, his snout narrowing and his ears nearly tripling in size. His fur became a little thinner and lighter, his build slightly less muscular. His purple nose turned black, and his feetpaws changed from a wolf’s to a Rüppel’s fox’s, followed by his pupils becoming narrow and vertically elongated. “Do you like it? You’ll turn back tomorrow, so don’t worry.”

“I love it!” he beamed.

“Good. Now, Joseph, it’s your turn. Look into my eyes, please.”

“Alright,” Joseph said, his light brown hair fluttering slightly as he nodded as he complied. Unlike Sivanna, Joseph didn’t shudder when Chester’s magic took hold. His skin sprouted fur all over, all at once, and it was initially the same light brown as his hair, but it quickly changed to the orange-white-black pattern of a red fox. His ears shifted to the top of his head as they grey significantly, became pointed, and obtained a concave shape as they turned into fox ears. His legs and feet, which were morphing into feetpaws, shifted to digitigrade, while pads grew on his hands and feetpaws. A long, bushy tail grew out from behind him – and, fortunately, his clothes altered just as this happened so that they wouldn’t be destroyed – and his nose and mouth pushed out into a muzzle adorning his increasingly-vulpine face, tongue and teeth reshaping as they went. His pupils, like Sivanna’s, also became narrow and vertically elongated, though not as much. His changes finished with his nose turning black and wet, merging with the tip of his muzzle.

In the other tent, the Bengal tigress Ning was being helped into a long-tailed dress, whites, blues, greens, and browns woven into a beautiful cascading pattern. As a gray alien named Penny and an ebony-furred wolf named Karina ensured that the dress was on properly, Ning examined herself in her mirror, and grinned. Chester was going to love her design, for sure. Penny went to get the bongo she had been given, and Karina had the other snare. “Penny,” Ning said. “Are you ready?”

Penny nodded as she stepped closer to Ning. “Yes,” she said.

“Good, hold still,” Ning ordered as she reached out and put a hand on Penny’s shoulder. She shuddered as Ning withdrew her hand, revealing white fur with black stripes that had sprouted all over her shoulder, and was quickly spreading. Her body became very stocky very quickly as the fur shrouded her. Her ears, mere holes in the sides of her head at first, shot up to the top of her head and grew out into large, elliptical tiger ears. Her eyes shrank as her mouth and nostrils were pulled out into a short, thick snout, teeth and tongue reshaping into those of a tiger. As retractable claws grew on the tips of her fingers and toes, lower body reshaping for a digitigrade stance, a long, heavy tail emerged, swishing. As Penny examined herself, Ning beamed. “Wonderful,” she said. “Wonderful! And as for you, Karina, it’s now your turn!”

“Ready when you are,” Karina replied. Ning booped her nose, which immediately became slightly smaller and almost triangular. Her snout shortened and slightly broadened, which coincided with her ebony fur turning mostly tan and white, with the exception of the characteristic spots of a leopard. Her ears lost a bit of definition, becoming slightly smaller and elliptical, and her fur became somewhat thinner. Her frame changed slightly as her musculature altered, and her feetpaws changed shape, from those of a wolf’s to a leopard’s. “Am I done?” she asked, surprised at how quick it was.

“You are!” Ning said.

Outside, guests had begun to arrive, with quite a few of them bringing gifts, and not soon after, the signal to begin the ritual arrived as the clap of thunder. The assistants exited the tents, each carrying a different type of drum, followed by the fox and the tigress. First, the assistance took their initial positions around the mattress, aligned with the cardinal directions, then, together, all four of them moved forty-five degrees clockwise. Finally, the engaged pair took their own positions, on opposite sides of the mat, and thus started the rain, despite the sun still shining brightly on them all. All at once, each assistant hit their drum once, and the fox and tigress slowly began to circle counterclockwise around the mat, gradually moving towards the center, with the assistants circling around them. Keeping just outside the mat-covered area, they began the song. As the gap between the couple slowly shrank, the rhythm of the drums steadily grew in tempo and complexity. Penny and Joseph started chanting, with Sivanna and Karina joining in a few seconds later. The couple were each halfway to the center now, and thunder clapped again as the rain picked up despite the sun still persisting, making everything appear as though it was emitting a golden glow. They spiraled ever closer, the rain gradually increasing in its intensity, and the drumming, chanting, and rain all stopped at once as the two reached the center of the mat. The rain, which obscured them at the very end, revealed them standing before each other, hands clasped together as husband and wife, looking into each other’s eyes. The crowd applauded and the drums rolled for a few seconds, the ritual completed, and Ning, being the older of the pair, took her new husband’s hand and led him off the mat, towards the food table.

As soon as everyone was gathered around, the servings began. Sivanna and Karina started from the east end of the table, with Joseph and Penny starting from the west. The first two set out the dishes and utensils, the second pair removing the covers from the entrees. Penny went back to Ning’s tent once their job was done, and came back holding a tea set that seemed very familiar to Chester. Ning’s telltale mischievous grin didn’t help too much. But then, the realization hit him like a brick: it was the tea set that she set out when they first met! He looked to his right, as Ning was sitting beside him, and she laughed. “What, did you think I’d forget about that?” she teased. “There’s even the same kind of tea I gave you when we met.” Chester’s nose told him the same thing as that one day: green tea with pomegranate and honey. Ning addressed everyone present next with, “Now, once our volunteers are finished, we may begin the banquet!”

“We’re all done here,” Sivanna said. “Everyone, grab a set and serve yourself!” There was another brief clatter as dishes and utensils were picked up, everyone moving clockwise around the table, taking what they wanted, with Chester and Ning, of course, among others, taking a cup of the tea. In a few minutes, everyone was at the other table, enjoying the potluck, which was composed of various dishes from all the cultures that Chester’s ancestry was tied to. After an extended period of silence, Ning spoke up.

“So,” she started, glancing around the table, “would anyone here like to hear how I met this lovely fox beside me?” A few people said yes, while almost everyone else, who had their mouths full, raised a hand. She beamed. “A funny story, really. Chester was out for a run one day, when he happened upon my mansion, so I let him in.” She gestured across the setup to the tea set. “We had some tea, and I may or may not have turned him into something.” Chester’s ears folded back. “Fortunately, though, he wasn’t mad at me. We were definitely friends by the time we parted ways the second time we encountered each other.”

“May I add something?” Chester cut in.

“Of course, dear,” Ning said.

“Now, I don’t think either of us can truly pin down where we fell in love,” his ears slowly unfolded and stood back up. “But I can say that it was pretty quick, and our first kiss was within two years of us meeting.” He paused. “Truth be told, now that I look back on everything, we might’ve been flirting the whole time, but I never realized it.”

“We definitely were,” Ning stated. “And look at where we are now.”

As the couple seemed to be finished eating, Karina chimed in. “I just remembered; I brought a camera! Would our two newlyweds be interested?”

“Yes!” the two said as one.

The leopard gestured to the mat. “Your marriage won’t be cursed if you set foot on it again, would you?”

Chester shook his head. “It won’t.” He looked to his wife. “May I lead this time?”

“Certainly,” Ning answered, as they stood up from the table, with Chester taking her hand and leading them back toward the center of the mat, with the leopard following. When they got there, they turned around and angled their chests towards each other, holding hands. Karina, a few meters away, held up a rather large black camera, with a huge, cylindrical telescopic lens. The shutter clicked several times before Karina let the camera down.

“They’re all good!”

“Which is in and of itself good,” Chester said with a grin as the couple stepped off the mat. He noticed that the guests were finishing up their food. “All right, everyone,” he called out, “it’s time to get cleaned up here.”

* * * * * *

Ning’s Victorian-style mansion now had a completely different feel to it, both inside and out. The newlyweds sat in the garden behind it, very near the pool in the center, almost in the shadow of the tiger fountain. “Dear,” Chester started, “I understand how nice it would be for us to sleep together, but,” he turned to face her, “you should know how it is, me being a fox and all.”

“I do understand,” Ning said, putting an arm around him. “We could still sleep together on nights you want, but I can understand your need to have your own home, your den.”
“Thank you,” Chester said, leaning towards her. “Not just for that, but for all of it.”
The two kissed, and when Ning pulled away, she asked, “Chester?”

“What is it?”

Ning looked to the mansion for a moment, before looking back to him. “I don’t want kids. Just you.”

To that, Chester simply smiled and replied, “I don’t want kids, either,” and the newlyweds kissed again.