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We spent most of the rest of that day in bed... and... on the floor, and one time on the couch after dinner. But the next day it was back to work, and Apollo lined up the twelve candles for me again. The sky was clear, the sun bright, and a breeze carried the scent of the trees to me as it blew through my fur. It was a beautiful day, and I was brimming with energy.

I walked up to the first candle and discovered I had gotten stronger- I was able to spit out an ember attack on my first try, and I was able to light the second candle right after. I danced from candle to candle, proud of myself, and when I lit the one at the very end of the row I looked back to Apollo triumphantly. "Ha! I lit them all; now you have to tell me how you got these!" The question had been bugging me for days, and I wanted the answer.

"Ah, ma lis de feu, you have gotten much better, but... I am afraid all of the candles are not lit." He stood next to the third candle in the row and lifted a paw to point at it. Instead of a bright flame, the wick just gave off curls of smoke. I looked past him and saw that the first two candles were also out.

I looked back at Apollo and pouted. "Hey, that's no fair! You're cheating!"

He looked ashamed for a second, but then grinned. "Well... yes, I am. But regardless, the candles are still out."

I pouted some more... but Apollo just walked over to the fourth candle and blew it out. "Fine!" I stomped back over to the first candle and lit it again, then dashed to the second one as fast as I could.

We spent the day playing with the candles. I raced to light the candles while Apollo ran to blow them out. Making the fire on top of all the running wore me out, and before long I was out of breath. I collapsed on the ground and panted; Apollo snuffed out the candles one by one, then sat down at the far end and smiled at me until I finally caught my breath. Then we started over. I found that it was really, really hard to create an Ember when I was breathing hard, but I got better at it as the day wore on. Even though it was tiring it was a lot of fun, more a game than work. Sometimes Apollo would switch up which candle he ran to blow out, and sometimes I would surprise him by out-guessing him and running back to relight a candle just as he blew it out. When we weren't out of breath we laughed as we ran around the backyard, the two of us enjoying ourselves.

It was just after sunset when we finally stopped. I lay panting on the ground, pleased with myself at staying just one or two candles behind Apollo since my last break, and the Espeon came over to flop down on the ground beside me. "Bon travail! You've gotten much stronger since we started."

I was too tired to wag my tails but I smiled at the compliment. "Thanks! It was fun!" I got the words out between pants and Apollo gave me a gentle nuzzle.

"I think that's enough fun and work for today. When you've got your breath back pick three candles to light and we'll go in and get some dinner. You must be starving after..." Apollo suddenly broke off and looked at the fence and the forest beyond, his ears pointed and his face locked in concentration.

"Apollo? What is it?" I followed his gaze but couldn't see anything.

"Shh! Listen." Apollo whispered back at me, and I stopped talking, trying to concentrate on the sounds I was hearing.

A long moment passed in which I still didn't hear anything unusual, and I was just about to ask what was going on... but then I heard something rustling in the grass beyond the fence. It was very faint, and I would have missed it if I hadn't been listening for it. I almost thought it was just my imagination, but Apollo's ears twitched with the sound and I knew he had heard it too.

Apollo didn't look away from the sound, but he leaned towards me. "Go inside; I'll find out what's out there."

I nodded and started to turn around when something jumped up onto the fence. "Aw, leaving already? But I just got here..."

The speaker was a cat-like Pokemon with a sickle-like tail. It was covered in fine fur, tan on its belly and purple on its back, with tan rings mixed in the purple fur. It had a stripe of pink fur around its eyes and ears, with tannish whiskers that curved back behind it. It took me a minute before I realized what it was - a Liepard. As I examined it I also realized it was a 'he'.

Apollo regarded the Pokemon with suspicion and moved to stand between me and the Liepard. "Who are you?"

The Liepard rolled his eyes and sighed. "No, no, that's not how it works. You're supposed to tell me your name first in introductions. That's the polite thing to do; you tell me that your name is Apollo, and that the pretty little thing hiding behind you calls herself Lily. Then I tell you that it's nice to meet you, and that you can call me Phobetor."

I blinked at the name and tried to understand why it sounded so familiar. It took me a second but it finally came to me. "Phobetor? The Greek god of nightmares?"

The Liepard grinned at me. "Hey, the Vulpix knows her stuff! But then I guess you were always a bit of a mythology buff, since you named your Espeon 'Apollo'."

I took a step back in sudden nervousness. How did he know that, or for that matter how had he known our names? "How... what do you mean?"

Phobetor just chuckled. "Oh, come on. I picked this name from your memories for a reason! I had a trainer a long time ago, and he taught me how to play around with dreams. Had some machine that showed me how to eat them and make myself stronger from the dream, even as I made my opponent weaker. And after I ran away from him I learned how to do even more with dreams, and how to mix my dark powers in with the move. Because of that, I know all about you. It was no trouble at all to peek into both of your dreams and find out learn about your past, your hopes, your fears, what mythological figures you had learned and forgotten about, and what you call each other." The Liepard looked over at me. "It was easy to learn you were bored to death of your life, had no real friends to miss you and no commitments to keep." He shifted his gaze back to Apollo. "And it was easy to learn you were lonely and desperate for a real friend to play with."

The Liepard hopped down from the fence and gracefully landed in the yard. He stalked towards us as he kept talking. "No, the hard part was sneaking into Leo's dream and twisting it around so that he dreamed of himself as a Vulpix, and then giving him the energy he needed to make the dream real and change his body into the hot little thing it is now. That required a lot of practice with my dark abilities to be able to do, but... I think I pulled it off pretty well, from the look of her."

Apollo glanced back at me, then back at the Phobetor. "You... it was you who did that?" The Espeon sounded shocked and unsure. "Why? And why are you here now?"

Phobetor sat down on the ground and started licking his paw. "That's simple, Apollo. I did it because friends give each other gifts! I gave you and Lily a gift, of... well... each other! And from the sounds I've heard coming from the house lately I have to say you've been really enjoying my gift. Which makes me happy to know, because I so want to be your friend."

I blushed as I realized the Liepard had overheard us - or more accurately had overheard me, since I was definitely the more vocal of us - but Apollo ignored the comment. "Oh? And why is that?"

The Liepard looked around him, taking in the yard and the house. "Because friends share with each other, Apollo! I just hated having a trainer - being dragged wherever he wanted to go, or paraded out in front of his friends, or pushed into fights when I just wanted a nap - but there were a lot of things people had that were really nice and that sure beat living out in the woods. Things that you have." The Liepard motioned with his paw at the house. "Wonderful things that you could share with me. Air conditioning in the summer, heat in the winter, dry shelter during the rain. Food far tastier than raw berries, such as that delicious smelling pizza you ordered a few nights ago. Soft things to sleep on, music, television when I'm bored. So many things you could share with me." He looked at me, his expression a leer. "Even a horny vixen with a very lovely... voice..."

I blushed even harder, but Apollo let out a growl. "You want me to share... Go away!"

The Liepard pouted. "Aw... you don't want to be friends? Well, I guess if that's how you feel, I can't do anything about it. I'll just take back my little gift and go back to my life in the cold forest, sleeping on the hard ground. You can go back to your boring old lives, and I'll try and find somebody else who might be willing to be friends with me instead."

The Liepard turned to go, but I stepped forward. "Wait..."

He paused and looked back at me. Apollo did too. "Lily, I'm not letting him have sex with you!"

I felt myself blushing again. "It's just..." I hesitated and tried to find the words to say.

The Liepard coughed, getting our attention. "Look, there's no hurry. You don't have to decide right now. Take some time, think things over. Enjoy my gift a little more. I'll hop back over tomorrow and then you can tell me what you've decided. Until then, ta-ta!" The Liepard walked back to the fence, hopped up onto it, and then leapt down to the other side, vanishing into the night.

I sat there for a minute and tried to absorb what had just happened. Finally Apollo shook his head. "Don't worry about it right now, okay, Lily? Pick some candles and I'll go start dinner. We'll worry about what to do tomorrow."

I gave a half-hearted nod and headed towards the candles. Apollo gave me a comforting nuzzle as he headed inside, and I spent a few minutes deciding which of the scented candles to light. It was really hard not to think of what had just happened, though, and my mind wandered back over the Liepard's words and what they meant.

I lit some of the candles, but realized as I did that this time tomorrow I might not ever be able to use fire like that again. I sat in front of the door and waited for Apollo to come get the candles, but as I waited I thought about what it would be like to have arms and hands again, and to be able to open doors and carry things myself. He got the door for me after a minute or so, and I thought of not being able to understand Apollo again as he asked me if I wanted the leftover pizza or if I'd rather he cook something. I didn't really feel like eating... but I knew how much Apollo enjoyed watching me eat hot dogs, so I asked him to make those.

While he cooked the food I stretched out on the table and rested my head on my paws. I just couldn't stop thinking. I stared out the window at the dark yard and just thought over all the new things I could experience as a Vulpix. Things I had already started taking for granted. The things I would never have heard as a human - the crickets outside, the click of the air conditioner, the sound of Apollo humming softly to himself in the kitchen, the plop sounds that came as he dropped the hot dogs in the pot of water on the stove. The smells - the candles each giving off a different scent that was richer and more _real_than anything I had ever smelled before, the hundred different smells that I could make out individually but which combined into a unique scent that was the smell of my home, the smell of the hot dogs cooking, the smell of Apollo, even my own smell. The feel of my fur, like I was wrapped entirely in a fur blanket, but one that breathed and kept me warm without smothering me. My tails, six light appendages that seemed to have a mind of their own most times, but that added to my balance and expressed my emotions even clearer than my human face had.

And there was the sense of touch. My Vulpix body felt so much better than my human body had. The feeling of the carpet against my paws, or of the cold tile of the kitchen, or of the warm dirt in the yard, or of the grass tickling them on a walk; all of them were wonderful sensations. As was the feeling when I sat under a vent and let the cold air blow against my ears and nose. The feel of my tongue when I licked my nose. The feel of Apollo's body curled around mine, and of his head rested on my tails. The feel of his tail stroking through my fur.

The feel of his teeth nibbling on my ear. Of his chest pressing down on my back, his legs holding me in place under him. Of being spread wide around him, of his cock filling me with his sperm.

Did I really want to give all of those things up for... what? A pair of hands? The ability to talk to people I didn't really care that much for anyways? If all I had to do to stay a Vulpix was share the house with another Pokmeon there would be no question of saying yes, but... sex with him too? I didn't know him at all... but part of me actually felt a little hopeful at the idea. Being with Apollo was amazing... maybe the Liepard would be fun, too?

Apollo interrupted my train of thought by appearing in the kitchen doorway with two plates of hot dogs. "Mademoiselle... your dinner is ready."

I giggled at his smile as he set the plates on the table and hopped up to join me. I knew Phobetor had upset Apollo, but the Espeon wasn't letting it get to him. I decided to follow Apollo's example - if this was to be my last dinner with him as a Vulpix, then I would do my best to make sure it was a good one. Normally we sat at different ends of the table and faced each other, but tonight I got up and stretched out alongside the Espeon. I dragged my plate over until it was against his, and together we ate dinner. I ate slowly, giving him plenty of time to watch me fumble with the hotdogs, and at one point I even leaned over and stole a piece off of his plate. He stole a piece off of my plate in retaliation, and so of course I had to take another piece from his plate... before I knew it, we were wrestling over a hotdog from my plate - or maybe from his - and he ended up chasing me all through the house, half of a hotdog held in my mouth to taunt him, both of us laughing.

He finally cornered me on the living room couch, where he pinned me down and tugged at the hotdog. I bit down hard enough that it tore in two, and we each were left with half. We chewed through our laughter and somehow managed to swallow, then laughed some more until we were out of breath. We lay on the couch for several moments, snuggled close against each other, and I felt very warm and comfortable. Apollo eventually moved to get up and I whined at him.

"Lily... I should clean off the table, and we should move to the bedroom."

I nuzzled my head against him. "The dishes will be fine until morning... let's just go to sleep out here, okay?"

He was quiet for a moment, then licked my ear and settled back down. "All right. Good night Lily."

I smiled and snuggled closer to him. "Good night Apollo."

The pleasant sound of Apollo's breathing carried me gently off to sleep.

After what seemed like only a few minutes I felt the sun on my eyelids. I yawned and opened my eyes, then closed them against the brilliant sunlight streaming through the window. I decided to keep them closed for another minute or two while I woke up, but smiled when I felt Apollo lick my head. "Good morning, my lovely flower. Did you sleep okay?"

I tilted my head up towards his voice. "Wonderfully." I opened my eyes again and blinked them against the light until they finally adjusted. "Did you?"

He smiled back at me. "Next to you, how could I not?" He leaned down and nuzzled against my head. "Are you ready for more practice today?"

I blinked at him. "Practice?..."

"Using fire! You're getting better fast, but you still need to keep working on it." He stood up and stretched, hopping onto the arm of the couch.

"Apollo... we need to talk about what happened yesterday." I sat up on the cushion and watched him.

He sighed and sat on the arm of the couch. "There's nothing to talk about, Lily. I'm not going to 'share' you with him."

"So... what? We just let him change me back? You want me all to yourself, but if you can't have me all to yourself then nobody can?"

"I'm not going to let him change you back!" He looked away from me to glare out the window.

"How? How are you going to stop him? He changed me in a dream, without even being in the house, while you were in the living room. And neither of us had any idea he had done it until he came and told us! We don't have any idea what it would take for him to turn me back. How are you possibly going to stop him from doing whatever he wants to me?"

He took a hesitant breath, as if trying to think of something to say, but I kept going.

"And for that matter, it's not even really up to you! These are my things that he's asking for. My house, my electricity, my air conditioning, my food, my... body. It's my future at stake here. I'm the one who'll be most affected by whatever we tell him, not you! So it's _my_decision! You don't get to tell me what's going to happen!"

He glared back at me. "So you're just going to let him do whatever he wants to you? Did he even need to threaten us, or would you just lift your tails for any male who wandered by?"

I blinked back at him, shocked at the insinuation... and feeling a little embarrassed as I remembered my thought that it might be fun. "I don't want that! I just... I don't want to go back to what I was anymore. Never being able to talk to you, just moping around and being bored all day? If that's the price to keep what we have now... it's not the worst thing in the world, is it?"

Apollo still looked angry. "Yes! Yes, it is! I don't want to share you with some stranger! I would rather you go back to a human, and we at least still be together that way, than have to watch some jerk coerce us into letting him do whatever he wants with you!"

I just stared at him, not sure what to say, until finally the anger from his expression faded, replaced with worry and sadness. "Aren't I enough for you? Have I been doing something wrong, that you want someone else?"

My ears drooped and I gave him a nuzzle. "No, no, Apollo... you're wonderful. I want to stay like this and be with you, I mean it. If it wasn't for you... I probably would want to go back to being a human. I like being like this, but I don't think it would be any better or worse than being a human if it wasn't for you. I want to stay like this so I can be with you, and if that's what it takes... if that's what I have to do to wake up with you curled around me, or to hear your cute bits of French, or to play with you while we're training, or to eat hotdogs with you, then... I don't mind..."

Apollo just looked sad still. "But I mind... I don't... I don't want to know you're putting up with that for me... that somebody is taking advantage of you because of your feelings for me. I don't even want to know somebody else is doing that to you at all! You're special to me. I've known you most of my life, I evolved because we were such close friends, and now... somebody else wants to just... come in and have some menage a trois. I don't want that... If that means I never get to speak to you again... at least we had this time together? And... maybe someday I'll learn how to do what he did... you can teach me the Dream Eater move, and I'll work on it, and one day I'll learn the trick, and then you can be a Vulpix again?"

I looked out the window, unable to meet Apollo's eyes. In my heart I didn't think the Espeon would ever be able to do what the Liepard had done - I had never heard of such a thing ever happening, and Phobetor had said he had mixed his dark powers into the move, powers Apollo didn't have - but the other things he had said made me feel guilty.

I leaned against Apollo, and the two of us sat like that for a long stretch of time, unable to think of anything more to say. After what felt like hours of silence we saw the Liepard hop into the backyard. He sat up and waved his tail at us, a smirk on his face. I looked up at Apollo and he nuzzled me. "You're right... it's up to you to decide. But just in case this is my last chance for you to hear it... I love you, Lily."

I felt my face grow warm and I nuzzled back at him. "I love you too, Apollo."

We sat like that for a little bit longer before the Liepard yawned pointedly. We hopped off the couch and Apollo opened the door for us, and we each took a seat in the yard before Phobetor.

The Liepard looked up at the house before looking back at us disinterestedly. "Well? Have you made a decision?"