Part of a series I started here earlier, and also the official companion story to this picture:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/79aj223a0zx5hym/lurkingwolf.pngEnjoy!
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Azariah Wolf wasn’t what you would usually call a social butterfly. He was honestly quite shy most times, in fact, but this time it would be different.
At least, that’s what he promised himself.
There was a social function happening later that evening, a dance that he had promised to attend, if only because he realized that he needed some real social contact in his life. The problem was, he had waited until the day of the dance, and he still didn’t have anything worth wearing.
So here he was, standing outside of a small tailor’s shop. Or “tailer’s,” as the sign above the door indicated. He had never done much in the way of formal clothes shopping in his life, so he hoped that the process would be quick and painless.
He had barely gotten a paw in the door when he heard a call from further inside the shop. “Just a moment, please!” Azariah smiled. Hopefully that meant that he would not have to wait very long for the process to begin.
It was, in fact, quite a bit faster than he had anticipated. He had only just started to sit in one of the few chairs in the lobby when a man bustled out of the back room. The human was a bit of an odd one; he wore a pair of rough brown trousers, a tweed jacket, and a bowtie. He dropped a fez on a chair as he went by, turning to smile at his new client.
“What can I do for you today? It wouldn’t happen to be about the dance this evening, would it?”
Azariah raised an eyebrow. “Have you had so many people come by for it already?”
The tailor shrugged. “Several people have come by, yes, but I am also wondering because I am sort of the sponsor of the event.” He grinned. “I sort of have a stake in it, I suppose.”
The wolf smiled and nodded. “Well, that makes sense. Not too busy, I hope?”
“Don’t worry about it, I can see you immediately. It honestly should not take long.” He waved the wolf towards the back of the shop, and Azariah saw no reason to delay it. He stood and followed the man back into a fitting room.
It was well suited for its purpose, if perhaps not particularly decorative. Several chests and drawers were scattered about the room, and all of the walls were inset with mirrors. There was a short pedestal in the middle of the room that would allow the tailor to see his work over the room’s sparse furniture, but otherwise there was very little.
Azariah quickly took his place on the pedestal, waiting while the tailor prepared. It didn’t take long; before the wolf knew it, the man had already claimed his measuring tape from where he had placed it after his last appointment, and he quickly began to take measurements. Azariah had little experience with these things, so he simply let the man work, moving only when he was asked to.
The man tutted quietly as he looked over the measurements. “Not a bad start, but some of these measurements will have to be altered.”
Azariah blinked. “Wait, you can’t change the measurements, you change the clothing,” he pointed out.
The tailor laughed. “For other jobs, perhaps. I certainly must alter the measurements here, however. There’s simply no way around it.”
He pulled some sort of catalogue from one of his drawers and began to leaf through it. He grumbles a few times under his breath. “This one is too small,” then, “this one is the wrong color,” once or twice, “too fancy.” Finally he gave a loud “Aha!” Turning the book about, he showed his find to the utterly confused wolf.
Azariah had not been able to see exactly what the tailor had been looking at until now, but as his eyes focused on it, he stared astounded at the light blue dress that the tailor was pointing to. Certainly, it would have looked wonderful on a female of a similar build to Azariah’s, but that was the problem. There was not a female in the room!
Azariah started to object, but the tailor cut him off. “Of course it’s perfect! Let’s get you changed.” Without another word, he pulled his hand back, showing momentarily the eerie glow that surrounded it, and pressed it briefly to the wolf’s chest.
At first Azariah thought that the man was simply insane, but a moment later he saw the glow from the man’s hand remain clinging to his shirt.
Being the rather fashion-challenged creature he was, he had come to the tailors wearing a black t-shirt and a pair of blue pants, cut just above his ankles. From the place where the tailor had touched him, however, the coloration of his shirt seemed to be changing. From black it turned to a dark blue, and from there it faded to a lighter blue, almost identical to the blue from the dress in the catalogue. The color was spreading, overtaking the rest of his clothing in a rapid series of changes. Even the material seemed to change, going from a plain cotton to a much finer cloth that the wolf could not identify.
He didn’t have much more time to consider it, either. Suddenly, a dozen changes happened at once; his chest suddenly pushed forward, a pair of breasts impossibly emerging where none had been before. They tore through his shirt, only to demonstrate that the undershirt the wolf had worn was now a frilly pink bra which comfortably cupped the decidedly uncomfortable additions to his physique. He blushed fiercely, the red of his cheeks visible even through his long, white fur.
At the same time, the wolf’s usually peaked ears began to droop, one already flopping over while the other slowly wilted to match. Between them, Azariah’s headfur developed, growing longer and gaining the distinctive sheen of a woman’s hair. The fur around his head and neck grew longer as well, forming what almost looked like a mane.
Changes carried on below as well; a moment after his chest had blossomed unexpectedly, his waist and hips both changed. The tailor managed his goal of changing the measurements, as the wolf’s waist became slimmer and his hips wider. She blushed even more intensely now, even as the changes rippled down her legs to finish adjusting her figure. Her pants were not spared the fate of the rest of her clothing. First, her shirt and her pants merged at the waistline, the one indiscernible from the other. Then an impossible wind rippled the material for a moment, and instead of simply tugging at the cloth briefly, it pulled it out of its original form, twisting what had once been a pair of trousers into the swirling skirts of a long, blue dress. The changing wolf touched it in disbelief, but found that her paws agreed with her eyes.
As the chest of her shirt reformed to cover her bra, the sleeves of the shirt tore themselves away, floating through the air for a moment before coalescing and wrapping themselves around her neck loosely into a woman’s choker. Her now sleeveless dress showed the longer fur of her arms, which had also become more slender. Azariah raised a hand before her as she watched the final, more detailed changes emerge. Black claws changed to white, black pads softening and turning pink before her eyes. Fingers became slender, slightly longer to reflect her new gender. And then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over.
Azariah finally breathed again, hearing without speaking that her voice had changed. She looked over her form in the mirrors, marveling at the extent of the change. She was not only female now; she was also a collie rather than a wolf! Looking at her form, she would have to admit that it would have been attractive, if not for the fact that it belonged to her.
“There we are!” She had almost forgotten the presence of the tailor. “What do you think?”
She looked at the tailor as though he was crazy. That wasn’t an unlikely possibility, she mused, but at the same time she had a hard time figuring out exactly what to think.
“I…” She paused briefly at her voice, but shook her head. “I was looking for a suit, I didn’t exactly expect—” she waved her hands down her changed body.
“Ah, but there’s the genius! What no one realizes is that this function is my doing. I set up this dance, sending out enchanted invitations that cause everyone who receives them to come to my shop for their formal clothing. When they do, I give them an experience!”
The female collie gave him a bit of a glare, but began to soften. It wasn’t so bad really, as long as—
“You can change me back, right?” she asked quietly.
The tailor nodded. “I will return your form as soon as the dance is over. Now, let’s see if I can’t introduce you to some others. Don’t worry; they’ve all gone through the same thing as you. It will be a good opportunity to interact where everyone is just as awkward as you are.”
The collie actually managed to giggle. “That doesn’t sound so bad, I guess,” she admitted.
The tailor smiled and offered her his hand. “Allow me,” he said, helping her down from her pedestal.
The dance was, honestly, not as bad as Azariah had thought it might be when he arrived at the tailer’s shop. He had worried that he would embarrass himself by not knowing how to dance very well, but since no one knew the right steps in their new bodies, everyone laughed together as they stumbled through the dance. By the end, everyone had abandoned their attempts in favor of talking quietly while the music provided a calm backdrop.
As Azariah left the dance that night, once more a male wolf, he smiled. He lifted a paw and looked at the picture he held in it. It was a picture of a male border collie, taken at the dance this evening. He moved the picture so that he could see the one beneath it, a photograph of a female cat, her fur pattern quite similar to that of the border collie. He sighed and tucked the pictures into his wallet. He looked forward to seeing her again the next evening under more familiar circumstances.
He had one more slip of paper in his hand that he had received after the dance, and he smiled as he read the simple two word business card.
The Tailer.
