A neat little story I got written for me by a friend who would prefer to stay anomynous, not set in the Lunar Academy Universe this time.

Karry is running a bit low on money, it being hard to get a job as a feral after all, and ends up literally selling herself as a rug, which... she may regret by the end of it.

Pasted the story down below, but as usual, I suggest you download the DocX for better formatting.

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Rugged Fox – A Fox Fur Rug Transformation
Disclaimer: I did not write this and take no credit for it. This story was written for me by a writer who would prefer to remain anomynous.

Karry strolled down the main street of town, and heaved a sigh. Life was pretty rough. What could one do? It wasn’t easy to make a living as a quadruped. As fancy as she may appear, with her starry purple fur, with spots and streaks of neon green, her financial situation had seen better days. She was certain she’d make it through, but was less certain that she particularly enjoyed the route she intended to take.

She sat down on the path in front of a rental store. She’d heard stories of the place, something about the guy who runs it, that you can get rather handsomely paid for the rather high cost of renting yourself out as an inanimate piece of furnishing, object, or clothes. Say, a scarf, a pillow, a basket. Karry was far from excited to be doing this, but, well, what choice did she have? It was fast and easy money, designed to entice desperate folks such as herself.

The doors opened automatically as she approached. Karry kept her eyes low to the ground as she trotted towards the back of the building, not wanting to make eye contact with any of the ‘products’ up for rent. She knew the vast majority of them were genuine normal items, but had no idea where the section for the flattened folks were. She felt that not looking up was the best way to avoid awkward eye contact.

A desk against the back wall was where Karry stopped, due to the label it carried on the front. ‘Strapped for cash? Volunteer to rent yourself!’ It read. She lifted her eyes to the person running the counter. They were a yellow and white furred fox, looking quite smug at the moment.

“Here to rent yourself out? Feel free to, we could always use generous individuals such as yourself~” He said, grinning.

Karry held her head up high. “Yeah, that’s what I’m here for. I need something that’ll pay me well.” She kept her voice calm, despite the worker’s taunt.

“Well, we have the perfect offer for you then!” He said, leaning back and flipping through a file. “We have a buyer who wants a fancy pelt rug for £500, and you look like you’d fit the trick! Go into the backroom, there’s a nice and painless -probably- machine labelled ‘rugs’, that’ll handle all you need!”

Karry rolled her eyes and padded past the desk into the room behind. She had a feeling this guy liked his job a little too much, but five hundred pounds was five hundred pounds. She let her gaze drift across the room she entered. It was deceptively large, full of all sorts of machinery. Some looked straight out of a factory; others looked like they belonged in a science fiction film; and furthermore simply didn’t look like they should function.

The machine labelled ‘rugs’ happened to be one of the more fictional looking machines, cylindrical with an overhang above the intended spot for the user. Karry sat down within the square marked on the ground, and used a forepaw to press the ‘on’ button. Four metal arms emerged from the plating on the cylinder’s sides, and each grabbed one of her legs, holding her in a spread-eagled position against the ground, firmly but not painfully. A dusting of some sort of powder fell over her, causing her to wrinkle up her nose and sneeze as it fell over her. Her skin felt tingly all over, excepting her head, paws, and tail.

Machinery spun up to life in the overhang above, the ominous sound bringing Karry a minor amount of worry. She looked up to see a large rectangular steel block slowly lowering itself down, powered by hydraulics. She felt a pang of regret in signing up for this, but reassured herself with the thought that it’ll be worth it, probably. She shuddered as the cold metal made contact with her back, slowly compressing down. The sensation was uncomfortable, as it pushed down as though her bones and organs simply didn’t exist.

Karry’s back was gradually pushed flat, and once there, it began pooling out into a wider rectangular shape. Her limbs did not entirely escape the treatment; her shoulders were pressed to the point where they were indistinguishable from the rest of her flat torso. The sound made by the press changed, as it began to recede instead. Once sufficient space was made, the metal arms grasping her legs shook Karry out from head to tail, fluffing out the fur that was flattened by the press. She felt nauseous from the shaking, but thankfully was laid back down.

The fox from earlier entered with a shipping box, and turned off the machine, freeing Karry from the graspers. “Well, you turned out well!” He remarked, rolling her up from tail to head. Karry’s green patches brightened, as she felt embarrassed by the treatment. “Now just to ship you off!”

“Hey, hold up, this wasn’t mentioned be-” Karry’s words were cut off, as she lost her wind when tossed haphazardly into the box, which was hurriedly taped up. She heaved a sigh as she felt herself carried off, and loaded into a vehicle, presumably a delivery truck. She suspected it would be a while until she was brought back out…

A few hours passed, perhaps more, before she was dropped off at what she assumed must be the client’s house. After some muffled chatter outside, her box was once again lifted up, and brought inside. A box cutter pierced the packing tape, and sliced through the folds, before they were lifted up. Karry was met with the white and red furred face of a red panda staring down at her. She looked excited, and lifted Karry up.

“Just in time!” The panda cheered, unravelling the rolled up fox rug. “I promised my guests I’d have a fancy rug to adorn the living room! A tad small, though…” Karry was laid across a rather open living room, in front of a curved couch. She winced as she was stretched out slightly to fit the entire space, but thankfully, was left alone after that.

“Oww..” She murmured, though was ignored by the red panda. About an hour passed, and Karry heard them prepping things for a party in the background; drinks, snacks, finger food, repositioning furniture… And to her concern, she noticed a setup for some kind of video game being made in the living room. As she heard the first knock at the front door, Karry feared she would be getting a lot more use than she thought…


The first group was simple enough, an ocelot and a jackal couple, each dressed up nicely. Karry flinched as the panda led them both directly across her, putting pressure on her back as they walked across. She heard them greeted fondly, and by the sounds of the conversation, they were only two of an expected seven guests… More than likely enough to fill the whole couch she was positioned in front of.

Karry flinched again as the two returned, now with, to her misfortune, something to snack on. It didn’t help that their paws were resting on her sides, either. As a pelt rug, she was annoyingly aware of all the crumbs that were being brushed off onto her, and lost in her fur. She was vaguely aware of some sort of conversation going on between the two, but found it difficult to focus between the scraps falling onto her fur and the movement of their paws atop her, especially whenever one of them decides to mess with her paws sticking out.

A small yip escaped Karry as the door was knocked on again, and the ocelot jumped up, landing heavily on Karry’s back. She saw a group of three out of the corner of her eyes, but didn’t have time to properly assess their species or looks, just that they were there. She watched as one of them walked past her, and was unnerved to see that they were the type that wore socks instead of going barepaw. She heard the television boot up as whatever game they planned to play was being set up, and slowly the other three sat down on the couch around her. One sat besides the two already present, and she felt the cloth socks on her hind shoulders, before the fifth to join rested their paws on either side of her head, tugging on her ears idly.

Karry winced as her body was tugged on; being a rug was bad enough, but it seemed she was seen as entertainment, too! She hardly even recognised that the last of the seven invitees entered the house. She was almost entirely distracted by her position on the ground as a rug, especially with the movement of the five sets of paws atop her, which soon became seven. She thought she heard remarks about how the ‘new rug’ looked so high quality, and how comfortable it was, but couldn’t be certain. The host finally joined the couch in the middle. She snickered to herself as she rubbed her paws on Karry, before finally beginning the game that was set up.

With the activities finally starting, the environment became a lot louder, which was harsh to Karry’s ears, especially considering their spot at the centre of the whole commotion. She figured they probably were hosting a makeshift tournament, with how invested some folks seemed in the fights between people besides themselves, and the frustration of some. Though her attention was grabbed most by the fact that a not insignificant amount of party foods -crisps, hard pretzels, and so on- were present; and the people here weren’t exactly concerned about keeping her clean of crumbs and scraps.

The first bracket ended, and it must’ve been an upset win, because Karry felt at least two pairs of paws slam down onto her out of frustration. She winced, and let out a small whimper. Her fur would surely be ruined after this, probably flattened in places, or tangles; even worse, maybe torn! She tried to dismiss the thoughts, it was only one day’s worth of use that she had to endure…

Her sides and paws began to feel a tad numb, with the constant back and forth motion of the crowd, and the tugging/pressing on Karry’s paws. Her green patches glowed faintly as the one near her front still was messing around with her head, pressing down on her snout, leaving her with a distinct embarrassed feeling. It was something else to have eight people treat her as nothing but a rug, and she hoped as much as she could that the payout was worth her condition -physically and emotionally- at the end of this all.

The semifinals bracket was up. The tournament had clearly proven stressful or infuriating for many; unfortunately for Karry, she was seen as something to take out said emotions on. Claws dug into her fur. Sometimes it was simple piercing damage; other times, the sore loser -or gleeful winner- dug their claws in and tugged on the ‘rug’. It stung a bit every time, and each scratch left a numb feeling behind, where her damaged pelt was. When the finals began at long last, she thought she must have had all sorts of scratch marks across her. One part near her front left paw even felt as though a hole had been torn to the edge!

Karry’s back was feeling sore after the amount of usage it had gotten by the time the finals came about. She had finally grown used to the loud environment, and it wasn’t as jarring as before, but she still felt highly uncomfortable with all the use she was getting. The finals were quiet, except for the game audio, which she was quite thankful for. Of course, she was far less thankful once the finals ended; because that resulted in nearly everyone immediately getting up to cheer for their respective favourite in the fight, or playfully boo at the opposition. She felt particularly bad when one of them stumbled onto her head on accident; even though they apologised, it was only to the host, not her!

WIth the tournament over, people eventually, slowly, filed out of the house. Thankfully for Karry, her renter was kind enough to hoover her and get the food crumbs out, though that itself was rather uncomfortable, with the way it pulled at her pelt and fur. Nonetheless, the light flowing in through the windows slowly faded, and turned dark. Hours later, her renter finally turned in for the night, leaving Karry alone in the living room. She held solace in the fact that she’d be returned to her normal body tomorrow… Though she felt she’d have been slightly better off without this experience.