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Collecting Curious Curios

A commission (my first!) done for DigitalPotato, of Fur Affinity.

Featuring: Banen (http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11555789/) and Thisit (whipped up just for this piece, but she's a character I might reuse, especially if readers like her or enjoy the concept of her setting). Best to view the character picture of Banen, since I usually don't like dragging down a story with an expose on character appearance unless it's really, really needed

I don't know what level of canon history or continuity he intends for his character, but his transformation into the form portrayed in this story can be found here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11450779/

This story takes place roughly one month afterward.

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"Now there's somewhere I haven't checked in with," Banen thought to himself, strolling by the street-side storefront of Exotic-ies on a stunningly beautiful late fall afternoon.

He'd intended to head out on a stroll just to get out of the house for the day. A month ago, when he'd still been human, it probably would have been on the chillier side of things for him to want to just walk around town. But since growing a white and fluffy fur coat and a set of scutes that, as near as he could tell, couldn't be affected by cold at all, he found he'd been looking forward to the winter season more and more. So he'd thought little of shrugging on one of his oversized and brightly colored Hawaiian shirts (the only thing he'd found that fit him well), a set of shorts with a sock that covered the base of his tail, and gone out on a walk to get a bit of practice at getting through a crowd without his long, furry, draconic tail getting stepped on.

He'd worked his way over to the city's outlet market. It might have been a bit of an automatic thing, a bit of instinct that had held over since getting a new body, but his feet had taken him right to one of his favorite money pits.

He'd swung into the curio shop more times than he could remember just to pick up the occasional knick-knack sold by the owner, a nice little old koala lady named Ms. Comens. The storefront of the shopping-center outlet wasn't much from the outside. The curved red lettering of the Exotic-ies logo above the shop-face wasn't anything special, and didn't even light up at night. And the small doorframe and dark windows didn't really give anyone a good look inside if they were just passing by, but Ms. Comens had always preferred to not let a lot of sunlight fade the paint on the little figurines and collectibles she parloured, and didn't want thieves being able to make walk-by check-lists without her getting them on video inside. You had to go in to really see the spread of old goodies she offered, and the little koala had been remarkably good at getting even the most causal of curious browsers to part with a few bucks on some little something or other once she got to talking with them from behind her counter.

That had been how she'd turned Banen into one of her more regular customers and friends. He'd spent a fair share of his paychecks there, gradually filling up the flat surfaces of his house with everything from delicate little porcelain figures of kitties to cast iron replicas of castles. Lots of them were just little trinkets he'd passed on one of her shelves and picked up on a whim, but a few had been goodies he'd had to save a bit for.

That had made having to sell them to buy all the new wardrobe items a good bit suckier. Adjusting to a new body as unique as the one he had now hadn't been cheap.

But still, there Exotic-ies was, looking the same as ever. He figured that since his friends already knew about what had happened he might as well swing on in to say hello to Ms. Comens and fill her in too. He'd known her long enough now to lay odds she'd probably not be too fond of the giant polar-bear dragon thing he'd become looming over her right away, but she'd probably warm back up to him quick enough. And it'd be good to see her again anyway. She was a touch of something familiar, and the store was too. The place's inventory changed a lot, since her little shelves full of assorted thingies tended to sell and get replaced fast, but the place always had the same feel.

Shrugging and smiling to himself, Banen crossed the short parking lot to the front of the store, and reached for the handle.

He stopped when his eyes caught sight of a sign on the darkened window to the right of the wooden entrance. It was faded, like it had been posted up and then just forgotten about. Squinting at the greyed out black and white print, it looked like a contractor's notice of a space expansion, from some company called 'Treasures of the World and its People'. It also said something about closure dates, which he couldn't make out exactly, but it looked like the place had shut down for a few weeks. Which he'd apparently missed out on while selling his collection and buying stuff like clothes and getting his life in order.

Banen pondered over that, a bit of an exaggerated frown crossing his muzzle. Ms. Comens hadn't ever mentioned anything to him about going into business with anyone else. He knew the shop was hers, and that was how she liked it. And Exotic-ies was just a little curio shop. How much space would Ms. Comens need or want to expand into?

He stepped back a bit into the parking lot of the shopping center, and looked left and right of the store.

He'd missed the change before, but the look on his face made it pretty clear to anyone passing that he looked dumbfounded at what he noticed now. To the left of the little store he'd been going to for so long had been a pawn shop, about the same size as Ms. Comens' business. Its sign was still there, but was turned off. And to the right of Exotic-ies had been a Chinese fast-food joint, and beyond that had been a little candy place.

All of them had darkened windows now. The Chinese place's sign was gone entirely; just some rusty holes remained in the metal overhang over the door. The candy shop's sign was partly disassembled; just a bright pink lollipop angled over a glittering word Sweets remained.

Going by the outside, and Banen almost didn't want to believe it just on that but couldn't pass it off, it looked like Ms. Comens had quadrupled the size her shop. She'd taken over all of the available space on the lot.

That was crazy, he thought to himself, hurrying back over to the door, as a slightly crazier other possibility that he really didn't like nagged at the back of his mind. He'd talked to Ms. Comens a lot over the years, and knew that she not only didn't have the interest in expanding like that, but she also didn't have the money. Maybe if she'd made a partnership agreement with some other collector or such in the antiques business they could have taken up that much space and afford it, but she'd never said anything about wanting to share her profits with anyone but herself. She'd never even seemed too worried about big money anyway, and just liked having a shop that lots of people came through to chat with.

Banen was hoping his logic wasn't too accurate by the time he reached the door and pulled it open, because it was leading down a path that he didn't like. As he started to cross the threshold, his mind let the thought cross that in the month he'd been busy his friend Ms. Comens might have di...

His head cracked into the doorframe, drawing a very bear-like snarl from his throat, and sent stars across his eyes.

Clutching his forehead with one hand, growling, and blinking his vision back, he cursed himself for forgetting he'd gotten so tall, and stepped the rest of the way into the store.

Banen completely missed seeing the red doormat on the floor sparkle as he stepped across it. From the moment his foot touched its soft surface to the moment his long tail trailed its tip into the shop the mat shimmered and glittered. Little motes of ethereal light leapt from it, danced in the air just a bare inch from its surface, and then faded with only the faintest of a glow.

Blinking a few tears out of his eyes and trying to shake the thought that hadn't gotten completely knocked from his head, Banen paid little attention to the tingling feeling the glowing matt evoked in his feet and tail. He was much more focused on the shocking change that had taken over the store.

Exotic-ies had been just large enough for six lanes of wood shelving stretched down its length to the back of the shop. Furnishings had been pretty minimal, and the carpet had been getting pretty stained by the time he'd discovered the place. Littering those shelves had been a wonderfully random assortment of 'stuff', as he used to think of it. You never knew what you were going to find there, and all of it was small stuff you could walk out with once you paid. Lots of old goodies would be on the shelves. Lots of new goodies too. Lots of it had been things people would consider junk, like faded plastic action figures or old electronics. But that was the crowd Ms. Comens had loved catering too, they were aficionados of the little treasures. And some of those junk pieces could actually turn out to be pretty damned valuable. Ms. Comens had possessed an uncanny eye for curios which were authentic little works of art, and she liked mixing them in with her usual trinkets to see who could spot them (and pay for them).

Banen had the feeling that crowd wouldn't be coming back to Exotic-ies anytime soon. Hell, he was plenty out of place just walking down the street of his hometown now, but he didn't even feel comfortable standing in the store he was in now.

The shelving was gone; all of the space was now dedicated to level showroom. All of the carpeting had been replaced with polished and perfect looking oak flooring, and furnishings had been upgraded to something of a more Eastern look. Maybe Chinese, he supposed. The darkened windows weren't much good at letting in anything more than the barest of sunlight, so the lighting in the front section had been upgraded to larger and powerful fluorescents that cast a detail-revealing gleam everywhere they touched. The front of the store was bright and looked ready for business, but near the back he could see that open fixtures, dangling wires from the ceiling, and a bit of darkness meant the remodeling was still in progress.

And the inventory wasn't something you could carry out in a bag anymore. The place had gone big.

Down on the far end, back where the candy shop had been now that the walls had been knocked down, was a whole assemblage of antique and rather lavish looking furniture. A bit closer and dominating the middle expanse of the store were rows of some of the most wildly varied statues he'd ever laid eyes on. Most of the material was themed on different anthro species, tailored a bit to wherever the items had come from. It was a bit of a world-wide collection of some damned impressive life-sized pieces, though from where he was he couldn't see most of the collection. Everything was a bit jumbled up, like it wasn't all arranged properly yet.

Hell, even the smell of the place was different. Ms. Comens hadn't ever really seemed to care about the somewhat musty smell her shop had carried, with all the old stuff cluttering it up even his human nose had caught the scent of time the things she brought in carried with them. But here and now, especially to his new and much stronger nose, the shop was pervaded by the tang of incense, the richness and earthiness of live wood, the tang of polished metal...and...

Oh, money. That's what it smelled of. Money.

Exotic-ies, if that's even what it could be called now, wasn't a little curiosity shop anymore. From what he could see of the furniture that was visible, and the extremely detailed and beautifully posed statues of anthros from around the world, his favorite little nick-knack store had become a boutique that was way, way, way outside of his price range.

"You're the first..."

"Jesus!" Banen almost jumped out of his fur and whipped his head to the side as a feminine and exotically accented voice spoke up from off to his left, just a few feet away.

There was a green Eastern dragoness in a red and gold robe and jet black silk sash around her lithe and very feminine body behind a counter eyeing him with an almost appraising look. He'd completely missed the remodeled desk while nursing his head and taking in the display room.

The dragon didn't seem to mind his startled shout a bit, and while Banen tried to get his heart to slow down a bit and assess her more, she continued as though she hadn't scared him badly enough to shave a few days off his life.

"...to step through my door and look so disappointed at what I'm offering. But," she leaned forward on the counter, brushing a bit of her green and black hair to the side, propping her elbows there, and settling her chin on her hands with a very appreciative look in her eyes as she took him in for herself. "My my, I can't say I'm sorry to see you step in. Is your head okay? That 'thud' noise didn't sound like a light graze."

It took Banen a moment to form a reply. It wasn't just the shock of having been startled so badly that had his brain a little muddled. He was having a bit of conflict with just how much his eyes were lingering and focusing on the dragoness. He hadn't been part dragon very long, and this was the first dragon anthro he'd met since being transformed. The effect she had on him was...strong, to say the least. Her voice carried a bit of an Asian accent that teased at his ears, and her body was the epitome of a gracefully mature and eye-catching woman, although she was a bit longer in the torso than a human would have been, thanks to her species' heritage. He couldn't see her tail from where he was, but his mind was instinctively picturing that long and graceful appendage coiled around in the desk space behind her, likely as jade green and lustrous as the scales on the rest of her body. And whether or not she'd intended to, the way she'd leaned forward showed off the bit of her chest visible in the part of her robe's front. The scales on her cleavage looked to be just as shiny as the...

"Ah, I like that look better than the disappointed one," the dragoness chided, smiling even more than she had when looking him over, her lip curved upward just enough that a few pointy fangs showed. "My name is Thisit, by the way."

Well, now he felt like a teen first hitting puberty.

"Sorry, I'm just surprised at...well...at everything," Banen stumbled. His face didn't blush at all through his underlying black skin and fur coat, but he felt it flush a bit anyway. He hadn't been caught staring at a woman's chest so blatantly in years, but damn, he hadn't been able to tear his eyes off her. She actually looked exotic and appealing enough that even after being caught he had to remind himself to keep meeting her very pretty green and slitted eyes, and not let his drift down to her other assets.

Banen cleared his throat, and tried to get something of a conversation going, and find out what he'd missed out on. "You said 'my door'. Does that mean that Ms. Comen..." his voice trailed off a bit, letting the dragoness finish for him.

"Let me take over the business, yes. I am now the very proud owner of Exotic-ies."

Banen had a feeling she was picking up his vibe and told him that flatly, rather than tip-toe around it. If the vibe was something she picked up on though, she must have very easily seen his disappointed look. Her expression had been intently curious and amused while she'd been watching him, but it appeared to soften as she explained.

"I found her store about a month ago. I'd just come in from Hong Kong, gotten settled, and was looking for somewhere to expand my network a bit. This place was in just the right location, and she didn't object to the idea of me taking over the space. And the owners next door didn't mind either after we arranged a few things. I'm still getting the renovations finished, which is why the outside isn't as refined as I'd like, but it's pretty well on the way in here." She paused a moment, then added hopefully, "Technically we are closed. That door should have been locked. I'm just waiting on my electrician. But would you care for a bit of a tour?"

"She just...sold it to you?" Banen knew he sounded rather silly just asking that, and didn't even address her offer, but it slipped out anyway while he was standing there.

"We had to do some negotiating of course, and it took a bit of work on both our parts and the other shop owners after I informed them what my plans for the space would be. But we got things worked out, and I can assure you I tried to make things worth their while. I even arranged for her and each of the owners to supervise the remodeling."

Truth be told, it seemed like Thisit was trying to reassure him that she was perfectly nice and had done her best to arrange a good deal with Ms. Comens and the other owners of the complex. And one worrying thought which had crossed his mind was that the old and small koala lady had died, which would have been rather heartbreaking to hear about second-hand. But it still felt like one of his favorite haunts had been stolen from him.

"I can see you're a bit saddened by this." Thisit, it seemed, was the extremely observant type. He hadn't noticed his head tilting down to look at the floor and his ears folding towards his skull. "Were you friends with Lady Comens? Or a regular? I know she had a number of favored customers, but she never even hinted at knowing someone so...Exotic, as yourself. I can't think she'd forget about someone as attractive as you."

Banen couldn't be sure, but it certainly felt like the dragoness was being a little coy with him, and he wasn't too sure how to respond. He was still a little mixed up about what it felt like to be part dragon, much less get hit on by a gorgeous dragon lady, and he was still a touch put off by her taking over the shop.

"I...was, yeah. I kinda went through some changes a bit over a month ago. Short version's that I used to be human, now I'm this." Banen gestured to himself with a general wave of his hand, although Thisit had been looking him over with pretty close appraisal already. But he saw her eye-ridges rise a bit at that, and her scrutiny of his form got, if anything, more intense. "It must have happened right as you were setting up shop. So this is kind of a shock."

"I can imagine," Thisit replied, a note of sympathy in her voice. She said nothing more for a moment, and just looked him up and down a bit more in a way that left him feeling a bit puzzled, but then she surprised him by sliding off her chair and coming out from behind the desk.

He couldn't help but notice that her figure, tail included, was just as appealing as his instincts had been telling him. Her oriental robe did not include a tail-sock like his baggy shorts did, and that meant his eyes trailed along the sinuous scaled length and furry mane all the way up to her rear and back.

Banen caught himself and looked back up just as he realized her robe had some very strategically placed slits in the side to expose her very shiny and equally shapely thighs. She'd already subtly but clearly called him out for his wandering eyes already, and even though her hips were eye-appealing he didn't want to make a fool of himself by getting caught again.

Not that Thisit seemed to mind. She smiled more than a little coyly as she rounded the desk and motioned for him to follow her. By how many of her scales she was letting reflect the light he didn't think she was all that shy.

"Come, I'd be very pleased to show you some of what I've had brought in. Some of these pieces are my own personal works. They might be of interest to someone as...unique as you."

Banen thought she added the last part almost as a compliment, but he wasn't sure how to take it.

"And I'll understand if the change in stock isn't to your tastes, of course. But since you were a regular of the old business I'd at least want to assure you that the space won't be going to waste. And I admit, I don't have much to occupy my time until the workers arrive today, and you are very...easy on the eyes, so to speak. Inspiring, even."

Banen wasn't all that enthused by the idea of checking the new store out, since he doubted he'd be setting foot in it again, short of hitting the lottery. But it was obvious the woman was trying to be nice, even friendly, or just trying to butter him up a bit. But beyond just not really wanting any of the things she was selling, Banen figured he'd voice his main reason for not wanting her to try selling him anything. There wasn't much point in wasting both their times.

"I don't think I can bu-"

"I'm not trying to sell you anything, sweetie," the dragoness chided him with a bit of a giggle, and pointed back over to her desk. Banen's eyes trailed over to where her finger was extended, and saw the flat desk top and a few holes in the wall. "I don't even have a register yet. Or a credit card machine. Or anything else for business. Like I said, this place is actually still closed. I'm just gathering what I need to get off the ground right now."

Well, since money wasn't an issue...

"Alright, I'll take a look around."

Thisit beamed, and gestured him over towards one of the far rows. Strolling down it, and getting a closer look now, he got a stronger sense of the variety and quality of the sculptures.

Right at the front of the aisle were a few relatively simple ones. A carved wood replica of a dapper-looking European fox stood at the head of the isle. And an equally upper-class wooden replica of a female fox stood next to him a bit further down, leading Banen to suspect the pair was a matched set. Further down was a plinth of white marble, and atop it was a wolf anthro in what looked like a Chinese get-up, sitting cross-legged.

The wooden sculptures were incredibly realistic in their own right, even down to the expressions of the foxes as they seemed to look towards one another with smiles on their muzzles. But there was something absolutely incredible about the marble wolf, sitting with eyes closed in a state of meditation. He wasn't just perfectly proportioned and even appeared to radiate a sort of serenity, but even the hairs of his fur looked perfectly captured in marble. Banen stopped halfway down the aisle with Thisit following him, and had to lean in, just to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.

Nope, the texture of the rock had painstakingly ground and chiseled into a perfect, absolutely perfect, rendering of a coat of fur.

With the absolutely superb body modeling, the detail on the surface left the statue so lifelike looking Banen half expected to see the figure breathing.

"Ah, yes," Thisit spoke up from behind him. "That is 'Zai heping'." Her accent made the words sound completely fluid and graceful off the tongue, but Banen knew that if he tried to replicate the sounds he'd butcher them. "It means 'at peace' in English. I led you to this row a touch out of pride, I'll admit. These are my own creations. Those two at the front are from my first efforts, and this one came a few years later."

Thisit set a scaled and clawed hand on the statue's head fondly, and actually rubbed it behind the ears a little. "It was as hard for my model as it was for me to keep up the energy of the work. It took much endurance to create this when I was still learning, and that translated to the wolf I was working with having to deal with me taking a lot of time off when I was only partly done to rest up and resume. It was trying for him, but the end result was well worth it, and it was an excellent learning experience for me. I'd never worked using stone as the medium before, and it encouraged me to not just become much faster, but also to try different materials in my works."

Banen had been listening raptly as Thisit passionately described the statue's level of effort, hoping and praying that in the midst of it she wouldn't tell him how much it'd cost to own the thing. Hearing a number higher than what he made in a year would be a real ego-blower. Thankfully she spared him that. He suspected a sentimental piece like the wolf would probably have run even higher than a regular one. "So you don't just make wood and stone sculptures?"

"Oh no no." Thisit almost laughed her quick answer, but smiled in fairly obvious satisfaction. "Come come," she pushed him a little further down the aisle, to a point where the next sculptures were separated by silk dividers into their own individual booths.

Banen found himself staring at what looked like another eastern dragon of Thisit's species, who was gazing upwards and reaching to the sky. But he wasn't her stunning shade of jade green. Every scale of his hide, each and every strand of the fur of his mane, and the seemingly wind-swept whiskers on his face was gleaming and mirror-polished steel.

It might have been silver, Banen thought. But the incredible shine and total lack of even the slightest touch of tarnish on even one of the thousands of little mirrored scales on the sculpture made him think otherwise. And he was suitably blown away by the piece. Even though he had only a layman's base of knowledge about just what sculpting or metal-work involved, he couldn't fathom just how hard something made out of solid steel could have been to make on even the simplest terms, much less such absolute perfect quality.

"I see you appreciate a work that deserves appreciation," Thisit spoke up, and the pride in her voice couldn't be ignored.

"I..." Banen could actually see his open muzzle and stunned expression on each and every scale facing him, and the ones around them created a kaleidoscope of the booth and gallery in cool and metallic tones. "How..."

"Practice, dear. Lots of practice, more than a few mistakes, and always pushing to get better. I fancy myself an artist that lives by the saying: 'With time and patience, the mulberry leaf becomes silk.' This peace, as a bit of a testament to my development, is relatively recent. I think it was done just a few years ago, and it was finished much more quickly than 'At Peace' was, even though it's a completely different medium. And if you'll step down a bit further, I can show you one of my most recent creations. It's a touch more unique than these last few.'

Banen found himself wondering just what could be more 'unique' than what he'd seen so far. The fox sculptures were beautiful in and of themselves. The wolf and the dragon were as real looking as he could imagine rock and metal could be.

It was a little darker back this far into the aisle since the lights weren't fully installed yet, but his eyes had had plenty of time to adjust while ogling the incredible works Thisit had shown him.

When he first moved to look into the next screen, he found himself facing a mass of earth with a small tree growing out it. The small sapling, if it was indeed a real tree, was rooted into and growing from a wooden box, and the sculpture was actually mounted in the tree, seemingly holding the trunk and sitting in the branches just above Banen's head. It was glass, or crystal, but by the absolute perfect clarity Banen suspected glass.

It was the first nude sculpture she'd shown him, and that was one of the things that made him suck in his breath at first. He hadn't expected a nude gallery in such a classy-looking place. And it was of a female subject, so the sculpture being nude and being above eye-level meant the first thing you saw was the model's womanhood and her slightly sagged breasts as one arm reached outward for something in the tree with an annoyed expression on her face.

As stunning as the detail was, and indeed as almost tasteful as the nudity was rendered, something else about the sculpture made Banen's heart skip a beat or two in his chest.

"I wish I hadn't had to rush this one so much. I had to act so fast that I really couldn't complete the work in a pose that was very conducive to a good setting. She was going to call the police, you see."

Banen heard Thisit's words behind him, but just couldn't take his eyes off the female koala-anthro, rendered in glass, just above his head. As much as he heard what Thisit was saying he didn't want to believe she really meant any of it. And he really didn't want to believe what his eyes were showing him.

"That's why her arms, legs, torso, and head are turned the way they are. I'm sad to say I acted on little more than learned instinct when she said she was going to call the police on me. I've become skilled enough by now that I can differentiate between a subject and the clothes a subject is wearing if I'd like to, but once the piece is finished I cannot change anything about it. So the pose was set, and I was forced to make do."

Banen was looking as Ms. Comens. Or what was left of her, frozen as glass. He could see her captured in motion so perfectly without the tree being there, seated on her stool, looking upward at the taller Thisit standing across her countertop. She didn't look annoyed in the tree because whatever she was reaching for was just out of her reach. He could tell by her annoyed look that someone had come into her shop and started bothering her about something. He'd seen it plenty often while just hanging around and having some random punk or brat try to lift something for free. And he could clearly picture how her arm had come up short of reaching the phone in time.

"This mounting did leave her positioned enough to see the changes my contractors made to the space, at least. But I'm not entirely sure I will be selling her anytime soon. There's not much demand for elderly nudes. Maybe in some markets, but not much here. And the pose doesn't lend itself to many different situations."

Banen felt a bit of his gut start twisting up as Thisit kept speaking and he kept staring. Her casual, almost analytical, yet at the same time almost distant tone was genuinely scary by this point. His stomach was starting to tie itself up and he was starting to break into a sweat as the implications of the other statues, Ms. Comens, and him being led into the back of the darker part of the shop were sinking, in as the dragoness continued to speak.

"I might keep her for a time longer, but if no interested parties make an offer after the shop has been running for a month or so I might just melt her down to free up the floor-"

Banen spun so fast that his tail almost caught Thisit in the mid-section as it whipped around, and came equally close to knocking over the statues on the other side of the aisle. The limb missed as the dragoness leapt backwards faster than Banen would have guessed possible. She barely left the ground as she slid away, and she did little more than smile with bemusement as Banen barreled towards her with every bit of mass and speed he could.

He made a good show of trying to run the smaller dragoness down, but chief in Banen's mind was the urge to get out of that gallery as fast as possible. If that meant going through the dragoness, fine. He'd run her over and if it hurt her then as far as he was concerned it was a bit of karma for Ms. Comens.

His headlong charge lasted all of three steps. Thisit did little more than raise her hands to him, and he felt his limbs slow to a crawl, like they'd suddenly been dragging through the thickest molasses imaginable instead of thin air. And as much as he growled and strained, he could feel his arms, legs, and tail coming to stubborn halts, effort be damned. Banen pushed forward with all the might his body could muster, laying into the effort to resist as much as he could, but the power being levied against his limbs and chest was greater. Growling rawly in the throat and at the same time gasping with the effort, Banen pushed one more leg infront of the other...and stopped. The polar-dragon was cemented in place with his arms out-stretched, and legs pushing so hard his claws had ripped gouges into the wood flooring.

At which point Thisit smiled even more broadly, and strode up the hybrid, delicately trailing a finger against the scutes of his chest through his shirt. "But you, my wonderfully exotic friend, you are going to be an absolute masterpiece."

"No...no no no! No!" Banen was surprised, but even though the dragoness was holding his body in place, she didn't seem to mind him still being able to speak and move his head around.

Then again, he remembered, she owned the entire shopping complex, and there wasn't anyone else there to hear him yelling. And the parking lot was a long one. No one passing by would hear him either. He was as completely alone as the dragoness could like, and apparently she not only knew it too, but she'd led him into the back area of the building so any shouts would be further muffled.

"Oh yes. Yes yes. Yes!" Thisit mockingly countered, her fingers twitching in apparent eagerness and grinning all the more. "I haven't had one yell so much in so long! Please, come, say the next line!"

"You can't do this!" Banen didn't particularly pay any notice to what Thisit had said, his mind was screaming at a million miles an hour over just how wrong this situation was, but was still only coming up with the bare basics.

"I can! I can do this! And I am going to do this!" Thisit replied, even more giddily. "Now the next!"

"Let me go!"

"Not a chance, young lad! You couldn't fathom how long it's been since I've worked with a subject just as unique as you. I already know exactly what I have planned, silly boy! It struck me the moment you came through the door! You, my lucky young lad, are going to be my first mixed medium! You're going to fetch me a million dollar sale when I'm done! You'll be simply-"

"You won't...You won't get away with this! You can't! This is kidnapping! Someone will know what happened! I won't be at work! My friends will get suspicious! My family will! Someone'll call the cops and..." Banen knew it sounded like he was ranting, but he was borderline hyperventilating and his heart felt like it was going to beat its way clean out of his chest with terror. What was spilling from his tongue was a deluge of fear-inspired responses that in any normal situation would have had maybe some threat to a bad-guy. It was a rant of common sense in a situation that had even less common sense than him getting turned into a hybrid in the first place.

The jaw of his muzzle abruptly snapped shut, by some miracle barely missing his elongated tongue. And while he MMPH'd plenty more, and got a bit dizzy when he couldn't get as much oxygen as his racing heart demanded, he was rendered mostly silent as Thisit strolled up to him and trailed a claw-tip against this throat, looking into head wide eyes almost sweetly.

"No, my dear Banen..." the polar-dragon's eyes widened even further. He hadn't mentioned his name to the dragoness up to that point. She'd told him hers, and he hadn't reciprocated.

"No, they won't. Well, they will, but you won't be connected to me. Not here, and not in my lifetime. I already know this for a fact. I am going to make you into whatever I desire, and it will be magnificent, and I will not be caught at it, just like I wasn't brought to any sort of justice for any of the other creations you see around you."

If his mouth wasn't being forcibly held shut, Banen felt as though he might have thrown up while looking down on Thisit, and listening her to talk. But as though she could sense his confusion and rejection of what she said, she turned and pointed towards the front of the shop.

"Many mystics of my variety do things the traditional way, and make themselves crystal balls and the sort for seeing what is to come. Because of my work needing...suitable models, I created something more specific and unique. Just a little tool to spy into specific bits of the future. I've created a Seeing Matt, and laid it at my doorstep. When you stepped in, I knew, not thought, not supposed, not reckoned, that I could make you one of my pieces, and I would get away with it. Maybe someday, somewhere, somehow, someone will realize what has happened to you, but even so, it will never have the slightest impact upon me. I could see it as though I'd already lived it, Banen. You were mine the moment your head graced my shop's door frame."

Banen wanted to say she couldn't really mean something that crazy, but if someone had told him that opening a DVD case would turn him into a polar bear-dragon hybrid he would have called them crazy. As insane and outright chillingly evil as what the dragon was telling him was, it was obvious she meant every word of it.

Thisit gave him a last tickle under the chin, before stepping away. "Now, the lighting here isn't as ideal as a studio, but it will do for what I have planned. But I'll need to start this by-"

A sharp, hard, and cold exhalation from Banen's nose caught Thisit squarely in the chest with a riddling of ice and hardened air, knocking the dragoness down the aisle in tumble of frosty flakes and scraps of red silk.

Banen hadn't used his newfound abilities in such a way...ever. Not once since nearly destroying the dartboard in his house. But the situation didn't call for anything else or anything less. Hell, he was furious enough at Thisit that if anything it called for him to give the witch of a dragon another dose. Gritting his already tight teeth, he sucked in a breath through his nose, held it, and aimed at the dragoness on the floor a few feet away.

His shot of ice hit the floor at his feet. And instant before he could exhale his head snapped downwards against his will, and shards of ice embedded themselves in the wood instead of dashing the dragon he aimed at further up the aisle.

Thisit, her robe hanging in tatters but otherwise unhurt, pushed herself to her feet, holding her clothes a bit tighter around her chest, and looked at him with...bemusement. He'd been hoping it'd be with extreme pain, maybe hatred, or at least some sign that he was going to get out of this. But her expression of casual amusement dashed his hopes far more than anything else. With his heart rapidly sinking to the bottom of his tail, Banen guessed that whatever magic she used to do what she did with people's bodies must have been used on herself as well.

"Well, I suppose I've gotten a bit overconfident in my methods. I suppose that's the price I pay for having not worked with a draconic subject in so long." Thisit shook herself a bit. Banen couldn't look too far upwards, but it looked like she was flexing a shoulder where the blast had knocked her down. Besides that bit of discomfort her scales looked utterly unmarred by what he'd done.

"Now then, if you're quite done with trying such silly little things...Let's get a good look at what I'm going to work with." Thisit stepped up to him again, and trailed just the barest tip of her claw along his shirt sleeve.

The bright orange fabric of his shirt and the tan shorts he wore vaporized before his eyes. In just a second or two he went from being rather garishly dressed to completely bare, the fabric turning to a gas and blowing away in the shop's drafts.

His body and genital slit revealed most immodestly, Banen groaned, tried to squirm, and blushed beneath his fur. And he tried to struggle even more when at twirling motion of Thisit's fingers his tail rebelled against his conscious control. It wasn't stopped by the dragoness' magic anymore, and instead she actively forced it to coil up beneath him, and his weight was settled back onto it. Banen indignantly squealed through his sealed mouth as his feet left the floor, and he was held aloft on the coils of his extra limb.

"Oh shush you, no need to make noise about just that." The sheer sadistic joy the dragoness was taking in the situation made it all the worse; if that could even be the case. It wasn't a stretch to think that seeing her subjects...no...no...seeing her victims protest and struggle was probably the reason she learned the horrible magic she possessed. He got the feeling she really got off on it!

Banen grunted again as his vision swung upward, his nose being pointed well away from Thisit's head as she took hold of his legs. She seemed to be treating his nose like a gun, and was keeping it pointed in a safe direction. As Thisit folded his legs into a cross-legged seat, and drew his arms down to his knees, she never put herself in line with muzzle again. She paused a moment and adjusted his hands, moving his thumbs and forefingers together, and settled the others into a relaxed state. Not that they were relaxed at all. They just looked it. He was fighting to move them with everything he had.

Banen grunted in surprise as his gaze swung sideways and downward, treating him to a solid and embarrassing view of his naked body perched upon its tail, chest heaving in fear and effort to move.

"Hmm..." Banen couldn't see more than Thisit's legs with this angle, but it was all too easy to picture her holding a finger under her chin. "Let's adjust your posture a bit." The woman snapped her fingers quickly, and Banen felt his back lurch to ramrod straightness, then slightly relaxed again to a less exaggerated state.

"Excellent. Now, let's see how much of a hybrid you really are."

Banen couldn't for the life of him figure just what the hell the demented dragoness meant by that, and if he could have voiced it he would have screamed at her the same thought, but it was clarified to him with shocking intensity.

Thisit extended a finger, and with a shudder of fear and indignity from Banen's body, drew it along his genital slit. Before his eyes it crackled with blue light, and a tingling sensation, incredibly strong and stunningly pleasurable, pervaded his most sensitive region. His length pushed forward and out as a groan of pleasure and embarrassment echoed in his throat. His member was one of the most draconic things about his body; fairly thick, black, and with a spade-shaped tip that was bobbing with his rapid heartbeat.

Of course that particular brain on his body didn't care how horrific his situation was. Whatever power Thisit possessed to move him like a marionette apparently also extended to stimulating him to a raging peak at the merest touch. Banen found himself sweating and his member straining with the strength of its arousal.

And Thisit approved, it seemed. "Well, I see someone got at least a bit more of one side of their heritage than the other, and it was the side I'd prefer."

With a bit of final flourish, the sculptor reached next to his head and pulled his hanging whiskers up past his face. It looked as though they were being blown into the air or held aloft alongside his head as she let them go and they hung where they were.

As insane as it was though, and as embarrassed as he was to be left staring at his member twitching infront of his face with a bead of pre built upon its tip, Thisit's next words splintered through his mind and burned their way into his every thought.

"Well then, my young Banen, there we are. It's amazing what just a few moments of time, just enough to really set things the way you'd like them to be can do for a piece.

"Now, all of this has, up to now, been reversible. The posing and playing, I could make all that go away with just the wave of a finger. But this is the point the real magic happens, my friend. This is where you genuinely become one of my creations, and that cannot be undone, I'm happy to say. If you are afraid, try to let go of that, if you can. The breathing you are doing right now, the little movement I've allowed, enjoy it for what it is. Savor it, and savor everything you feel from this moment on. What is to come is the feeling of your body being forever changed, and it's something you'll never forget, I promise you. However long you exist, these coming moments and sensations will be the most significant moments for you since...well, since the day you were born, I dare say."

Banen couldn't do anything but grunt, groan, his eyes wide, breath rasping in and out of his nostrils as he tried to do anything, to move anything of his body short of his bobbing member, and failing as Thisit artfully raised her hands.

From beneath the floorboards, drifting up out of the minute little cracks in the beams came a cloud of sand. It was barely a hissing mist of tan particulate at first, but it rapidly built into a heavy cloud that surrounded Banen's paralyzed body. As it drifted closer and solidified more in mass, he caught sight of the briefest little blue sparks of Thisit's power flash through it, and in an instant the dust turned into perfectly clear liquid, almost like a rippling sheet of water or fluid glass. It reeked of ozone in the shop for a moment, whatever power that was being used had caused the air to stink of the stuff and snuff out even the musky smell of Baren's forced arousal, before the liquid closed on him in what he expected to be a horribly painful embrace.

It didn't hurt, thankfully. But as every inch of his body was coated in the feeling of being drenched in syrup, his member jerking and Banen groaning with the stimulation, the polar-dragon saw Thisit gesture to him with the palm of her hand...and was rocked by a surge of power he could barely comprehend.

It left him shivering, shaking, and he could feel every spark of it rake through his skin, fur, and scales like a lightning bolt that dazzled his vision and almost drew a climax from his member, but fell just the barest short.

Gasping, Banen opened his eyes when they could focus, and groaned in terror.

His skin, his fur, and the scutes along his chest, were all perfectly clear. It was like he'd become a see-through glass sculpture of himself. He could see his muscles straining. He could see his heart beating in his chest beneath his ribs with only the clearest and thinnest surface covering them. His lungs were heaving with his breath. His veins were surging as his heart worked in sync with his sheer effort to break free from Thisit's grip. He could see every detail of his insides, absolutely perfectly.

And as horrible as the sight was, he could see, down and off to the side, two blobs of...something, one black, one pure white, floating in the air.

Just what the hell was the dragoness doing!? What could she possibly be turning him into!?

He could barely groan in shock again before the next bolt struck him, and as magic slithered beneath his glass skin and danced through his muscles, this time he saw it clearly as his muscle-mass vanished, and left behind an almost hollow and loose tingling unlike anything he'd ever felt. As his now completely see-through eyelids danced with energy coursing through him, he saw a mass of...red stuff, it could almost have been an oil, appear in the air next to the other two blobs.

And then another bolt struck, this time even faster, and this time he couldn't even groan aloud as it coursed and enervated every organ in his body. His member, if it was even possible by that point, stuck forward even harder, straining to reach its peak with the stimulation, and every organ in him vanished. His lungs, his heart, every life sustaining structure he possessed disappeared, and was collected in a pink mass alongside the others.

And yet his member still stood and pulsed lewdly infront of him, in plain view of everyone. It still begged for release. He still felt his chest move in a parody of breathing, though there were no lungs for the air to go. Instead he felt an odd...swirling sensation around his bones in within his interior.

The bolt that came next momentarily stalled his mind's attempts to comprehend anything else, and with it his bones were the last things to go. And while he still shuddered and twitched with their passing, still saw their remains appear as an off-white something infront of his transformed body, he did so less. Like whatever it was that had been keeping him mostly animate had been getting syphoned away, no matter how much he fought to hold onto it.

"Ahh, you've come together so nicely, my young friend," a tired sounding Thisit cooed to her polar-dragon sculpture. Banen still couldn't see more than her feet, but she sounded close to passing out from the toll this was taking on her, not that it did him any good.

"I know you cannot speak, but as a word of advice, brace yourself, my friend. This will set things into place, and it will be...rather intense, compared to what came before."

Banen wanted to shudder at those words, but the blast of magic hit him first, and he couldn't shudder. From the tip of his curled up crystalline tail, on through his lower body, and up to his genitals a wave of solidification and liquefaction rippled through him. His base of a tail turned completely, resolutely, and strongly into solid crystal, no longer even slightly shivering. His member strained madly, and if there had been anything left within him to climax with it would have, and he almost felt himself cry out when release was denied, replaced with a rock hard solidification of the outside, and a liquid stirring of his member's interior. His chest and arms froze with the same sensation, as did his neck.

The only difference was his face. As shocked and overwhelmed as he was, Banen felt his features relax into an almost serene, blissful look. He could barely think through the power finishing his form into whatever Thisit wanted it to be, but he was reminded of the wolf, meditating upon his plinth, looking perfectly relaxed, but probably raging at what was happening to him.

And then it was done.

Banen no longer breathed, or moved a muscle. His erection no longer bobbed or begged for attention, it just teased his mind with its desire. His eyes didn't close, but as the power running through him faded away, his vision remained as sharp and clear as ever without needing to blink.

The perfect vision he possessed showed the interior of his body had been filled with something...some sort of completely clear liquid he could feel moving in him gently, and the blobs of whatever stuff his mass had been turned into were floating within it almost serenely, gradually settling to the bottom of his stomach and rear.

That wasn't what Thisit wanted, it seemed. She wanted a piece that was showier and more ostentatious than he'd already become.

Unable to make a sound even in protest now, and still slightly overwhelmed, Banen saw her head lower beneath his crossed legs, and blow ever so gently against the base of his tail.

A glow erupted, and a warmth, concentrated in his base but rapidly, intently, and without fading as her head drew away, sprang into being.

It took a few moments, but it achieved the effect Thisit wanted. Banen heard the dragon sigh in satisfaction when the masses of color that had sunk low in him began to rise again, and he felt the liquid in him begin to convex through his hollowed form, right through his torso, into his member, and right up to the base of his neck.

A lava lamp. He didn't want to believe it, almost couldn't even though he was staring it and feeling it in the crystal or glass or whatever he'd become, but that's what the draconic witch had made him into. A meditating but permanently aroused lava lamp of himself.

"Indeed," Thisit's voice broke into his thoughts of shock. "An over-the-top masterpiece, that I will treasure while I have it, and which will sell probably far too fast for my liking, but for a price I know I will be satisfied with."

Banen felt her hand tease along his solidified member just as the pink colored mass floated up towards it, and with no voice or vocal cords he couldn't moan as the pleasurable and warm feeling danced through his fluid interior and hardened shell.

"I might not have you long," Thisit's voice breathed right next to his ear, and a hand stroked along his intensely sensitive neck to just behind his ears, tingling and feeling so good that he actually felt it create a shiver of satisfaction through his interior. "But I'm going to treat you as my best work to date while I do, and while no one else is around."

The sensation of her touch left him, and as much as he hated what he'd been turned into and hated the woman who'd done it even more, it had been so powerful he missed it immediately. The warm feeling of his blobs of drifting and circulating color soothed and teased wherever they touched his inner wall, but the feeling of another on the surface of his warm shell was indescribable.

"I think I'll cancel the electrical work for the day," Thisit said, somewhat further away, likely going towards the phone. "I need to arrange to get you properly set-up, and I need to rest after that display. Do keep an eye on the shop, will you?"