I awoke the next morning with the Vixen standing over me, sniffing and prodding my ear gently. The night had gone quickly, but that was because I slept comfortably for once with her snuggling against me. With a great, tongue-curling yawn, I opened my golden eyes to the dawn sunlight coming in through the blinds. Looking up at the Vixen standing over me, I wagged my tail against the bed to say good morning, and she gave my ear a lick before jumping off the bed.

Come now, she yipped from the floor, Show you flame.

My ears perked up at the invitation, and I raised my head from the bed. Now? I questioned. I have to catch a bus.

Yes. I sleep soon, she tapped anxiously at the doorway.

I could tell this was really bad timing. The sunlight looked like the time I should be leaving for the bus stop, not when I should be groggily climbing out of bed. Yet, she had sacrificed her whole night for me to make sure I woke up at dawn, and with our sleeping schedules being reversed, it may be hard to get lessons in.

Ok, but this can't take long, the bus won't wait for me.

Not long. Show you now.

Rising to all fours, I stretched my paws out in front of me, as well as my neck, and then I hopped off the bed and followed her to the door outside. I really need to figure out something with trash management, I thought to myself as we trotted through the kitchen. I had left the chewed cardboard box and the halfeaten dinner tray in the middle of the floor. Prying open the door with her claws, the Vixen lead me outside into the cool morning air and down the driveway.

Here, she said, pointing with her muzzle at the rodent hole I had noticed yesterday.

Unlike yesterday, the hole seemed completely dormant. There were no signs of life under the soil. I craned my neck and listened for any signs of the rodents scratching and burrowing, but the only signs that a rodent had been here was the telltale odor left by it.

Watch, she whimpered.

Bracing herself in a wide stance, she stared intently at the hole. A moment later, blue light flashed from her eyes. I started to ask her about the color of the light, but thought better of it. She was trying to demonstrate something important to me.

A moment later, the sounds of many rodents scratching and digging reached my ears from beneath the ground. Suddenly, a tiny, brown furry nose poked itself out of the hole. It delayed only a brief moment before a vole popped out from the hole and walked clear from the burrow, seeming oblivious to the pair of foxes towering over it. One-by-one, five more voles popped out of the hole and each took turns lining up next to the first. They all seemed to be waiting for something, but none of them looked like they were out of their hole for any particular reason, other than to line up.

The Vixen sniffed at each of the six voles, before selecting the biggest one by quickly clamping her jaws over it and giving it a hard shake with her powerful neck until it squeaked and popped. Dropping its lifeless corpse to the ground in front of her, she selected the next biggest, and quickly crushed it as well.

I wasn't ready for witnessing such savagery so early in the morning. My jaw was hanging open in shock. The Vixen stepped over to me, and placed the lifeless vole on the ground for me. Behind her, the remaining four voles squeaked in panic and broke rank, dashing for their hole and fighting to be the first back into the borrow.

Flame for foxes. No others, she said sternly. Flame for fox hunt. Flame for fox stay alive. Stunned speechless, I flicked my tail in acknowledgement, but I didn't understand the lesson, other than it could feed me live prey.

Eat. Flame not fill hunger, she said.

I looked at the mangled brown body of the vole before me, unsure of what to do. The poor thing just let itself be executed, but it seemed doubly unfair to let it go to waste. Carefully, I reached down and picked up the vole with my jaws. The furry rodent felt like having my own tail in my mouth; I couldn't see eating it unless I was actually starving to death. Looking up at the Vixen, I saw she was already gnawing and tearing at her vole hungrily.

With the vole still in my mouth, I whined, I'm heading to the bus now, are you going to be here when I get back?

She looked up from her eviscerated corpse and swayed her tail with a smile. Yes. Show you more.

Keeping the vole in my mouth, so as to not upset her, I trotted across the road to start my journey to the bus stop. Hopefully, I wasn't too late. Before I finished crossing the road, there was a panicked yelp from the Vixen behind me. I spun around to see what was the matter. The Vixen was staring at me like I was insane. No! No road. Road dangerous!

I perked my ears up, listening for the sounds of any incoming cars, but the morning was calm and only the sounds of birds and a light breeze could be heard. Cocking my head in confusion, I dropped the vole to the pavement. _ I don't understand, I do this every day_, I called back. This is how I get to the bus stop.

No! she yelped in a panic. She started pacing back and forth on the side of the road. Road kill foxes! Come! Come!

Look, it's not going to matter in the end, because I have to be on this side to wait at the bus stop, I yipped back at her. I may as well cross now.

Understanding dawned on her face, and she almost stepped into the road to try to retrieve me. No bus! Bus kill you! she squealed.

I hadn't realized she didn't know what the bus stop was up until this point, now that she knew what I

was about to do, she couldn't contain her terror. _ I'll be fine. I used the bus yesterday and I'm still alive_.

Maybe it was the boast of my success, or maybe because I wasn't afraid of busses, she calmed a little and stopped pacing, but I could see her quivering with anxiety from where I stood. _ If it makes you feel better, you can follow me to the bus stop_, I told her. Shaking stiffly, she flicked her tail in agreement, and waited for me to begin my journey. Picking up the vole, I trotted softly to the edge of the road and headed off.

The far side of the road where the vixen held her position wasn't meant for traveling on, while my side had a wide shoulder for cyclists and parked cars. Still, despite the constant ditches to crawl through and narrow grass margins between sure-footing and pavement, the Vixen kept pace with me. Her reaction to me crossing the street was surprising, considering how good my fox senses were. There were nearly no sounds out on the road this morning, and I could always hear incoming cars before they were near. Her senses shouldn't be any different, why was she so scared of the road? A mischievous thought played across my mind, and I considered jumping back into the middle of the pavement, just to tease her while she followed, but I opted against it in the end. She was worried about me, and had dedicated a lot of effort to making sure I was safe and comfortable.

Are you OK over there, I call out with a high-pitched trill.

Popping over the edge of a ditch before dropping down into the next one, I heard her trill back, Follow. Bus.

Plastering my ears back with guilt, I continued trotting on. I was causing her a lot of distress, and I didn't mean to. Yet, she was going to need to get used to this behavior from me if we were to spend any time together. Being turned into a fox didn't stop me from trying to work, and she wasn't going to stop me with her irrational fears of the road.

Finally nearing the bus stop, I began to think about checking my phone again for the time, but this time, I didn't get as far as lifting my paw off the ground to make a fool of myself. Old habits die hard, I guess. From across the road, the Vixen stared at me with trepidation.

No bus. Dangerous, I heard her quietly whimper.

Seeing her shaking across the road reminded me that this was the first place we had met, back when I was still a human. I didn't have my bag or bagel with me today, but I had a vole.

Hearing no sounds of vehicles on the road, I dropped the vole by the bench, and casually strolled across the road towards the Vixen. She bent down low and plastered her ears back in fear while I was on the asphalt, but I padded up to her and gave her a lick on her face. See, I'm OK, I reassured her. I can do this.

No go, she squeaked, flopping her tail around limply. Den near. Go to den.

You can go rest there for the day, if you wish, I told her, putting a black paw on her back to reassure her. I'll be back home tonight. You can meet me at my house again.

I could feel her start to relax under my paw. Back. Tonight. Rationality was returning as I reassured her.

Off in the distance, I could hear the low rumble of the bus engine, I had not missed my schedule at all. Oh, and before I go, I said in a hurry, do you think you could bring my phone back with you? It was in my pants.

She flicked her tail to acknowledge, and I trotted across the street to wait for the bus to pull up. Thanks!

Once at the bench, I looked down at the vole. I really didn't want to eat it, but I had no food for my day at work today. Maybe, I could allow myself this one concession. The Vixen had been intensely scared of the road, and she managed to get this far. The least I could do in return is eat the animal once I was hungry enough.

Ick.

Maybe it wasn't a square deal I was making with myself for her, but deep down inside, I knew I was going to have to do this sooner or later anyway. At least, if I brought the vole with me, I knew I wouldn't have to steal someone's lunch again.

I mean. *ICK*

The bus had rounded the corner and was approaching the bus stop. I had wasted too much time trying to psych myself up to eat the rodent that I had forgotten to stop it myself. Yesterday had proved that the bus won't pick up foxes, so I quickly snatched the furry corpse off the ground and darted into the road. Ignoring the terrified squeak from the Vixen who had still been watching me, I planted my paws down and lowered my head and made a wish while staring down the approaching bus with my bright golden eyes. I need to get on the bus.

*WISH*

Purple light flared up again, and the bus slowed to a halt in front of me. I caught a glimpse of the Vixen in the bushes on the side of the road, her terrified expression turned to shock and anger. No! No Flame! Use bad! Dangerous! She yipped angerly. A gentle hiss sounded from the doors as they slid open, and I dashed onto the transport, ignoring her barks and yips.

Just like yesterday, the driver and the passengers seemed oblivious to the sudden stop, or aware of their new vulpine guest. I padded softly to one of the benches and curled up on it, trying to keep stealthy thoughts in mind. There was nearly an hour before we reached my work, so I considered trying to nap as I usually did on the bus, but unlike most mornings, I felt quite refreshed today from my slumber last night. Cuddling with the Vixen in a warm ball of fur had been far more relaxing than I could have expected. Releasing the vole, it fell next to me on the bench, and I was happy to get it out of my mouth again.

The poor thing was laying limp on the seat, its brown fur ruffled and askew by my saliva, and the rest of it contorted and broken from the Vixen's bite. I stared at it intensely, trying to change my perception of it in my mind and picture it as food, rather than seeing it as a dead animal, but the earthy smell coming from it didn't smell like any food I've ever eaten before. Prodding it with my black nose, I got it to flop around comically a few times, but it still wasn't food to me. Resting my white chin on the seat, I studied the back of the bench in front of me, and tried to think hard about my situation.

Was I doing the right thing? The Vixen had gotten pretty mad when I used magic, and it had turned purple again. My house and my life were very important to me, and I wasn't about to give them up without a fight, but keeping her happy seemed more and more important the longer I spent with her. If I had to use magic in a way that angered her each time I went to work, would she continue to stand by my side and help me? There was a gurgling in my stomach. I hadn't eaten breakfast, and I could feel a tinge of the void returning. Not to mention the sinking feeling I had, that not eating the vole wouldn't be sustainable in the long run.

The bus lurched and I had to brace myself from falling off the seat. Turning to the vole again to make sure it didn't fly off onto the floor, I put my paw over it to keep it from moving. Feeling its soft flesh on my rough pads, a surge of emotion swelled in me, and I nearly started to cry as I was overwhelmed by it. This would be so much easier if I wasn't a fox, I thought to myself, as sheer desperation gripped and tightened my throat. Why did she turn me into an animal? I didn't do anything to deserve this. A single tear welled up and rolled down the corner of my muzzle onto the bench. Everything about this was so unfair.

Maybe, I thought to myself, just maybe, I could fix this with a wish. Rising to a sitting position with my paws on the bench, I announced to myself, I don't want to be a fox anymore.

...

Nothing happened. Something felt hollow about the wish, like I really didn't mean it, but I knew I meant it as much as anything I had used magic for. Yet, I realized that may actually be true. While I wasn't happy being a fox, it had broken up the monotony of my life, and giving up on this new challenge so quickly like this wasn't in my blood. I had been a fox for just over a week now, and that was far too soon to throw in the towel and give up. My bushy tail was curled up next to me, and I looked down at it. If I managed to regain my humanity, I wouldn't have a tail anymore, and on some level, that disappointed me. It was a new experience having the appendage, and I had gotten used to having it to express myself with. Maybe, it really was too soon to try to turn myself back into a human. Maybe, for this wish, I had to really want it. Besides, if I managed to turn back now, I would be naked on the bus.

Trees were speeding by the window, and the bus lurched hard again as it slowed to make a hard turn at the intersection by the Country Corner Market. We were entering the suburbs, and about halfway to my work. I regretted not having my bag and phone with me today. Even when I was human, I always had them with me on these commutes, and it was comforting knowing I had things with me to be prepared. Without them, I was reduced to holding a single vole in my mouth while I traveled. Unlike yesterday, knowing the magic was keeping me safe from being seen by the other passengers, I found myself getting bored and wanting my phone to distract me for the remainder of the trip. I had no idea if I could use it properly with my paws, but I figured I could download one of those apps people use for entertaining their cats. Swiping at some fake fish sounded like more fun than I was having right now. In my boredom, I curled into a ball and snorted loudly in frustration, waiting for the ride to end.

---

The bus reached my stop in the city without incident, and I disembarked onto the noisy city streets, carrying the vole with me. Slinking along the city street, and keeping stealthy thoughts in mind, I reached my office building and darted inside as someone was exiting the glass doors. As usual, the lobby was deserted, so I trotted on past the directory podium and pressed the elevator call button with my paw. It was always a guessing game on which of the six elevator doors would open when called, but my fox ears made it a little easier this time. One of the doors behind me had the most sounds of machinery moving around, and after a short while, I could hear the car coming down the shaft, making its light beeps as it passed each floor. Just before the car reached my floor, I could hear the telltale sounds of conversation in the car, so I darted off to the side to remain out of direct sight. The doors slid open, and a man and a woman stepped out towards the exit, with the woman's heels making loud, echoing clack, clack, clack sounds with each step on the marble tile. After the couple reached the entrance to the building, I poked my head around the doors of the elevator car to see if it was clear, but as I did so, they began to slide shut. More out of surprise and shock than a rational decision, I threw myself through the air into the car before the doors could close on my face, or an unmanaged tail. Standing up against the wall on my hind paws, I pressed the button for the 19th floor, and braced myself on all fours as the car began to ascend.

Once I arrived at the 19th floor, the doors slid open, and I padded down the carpeted hallway to the business suite my work was in. Arriving at the double wood-framed glass doors, I found I had a new problem. They were shut, and no one was going in or out. I was about to use a wish to blast them open for me, but then I noticed the door handles. Unlike door knobs, I had a proper chance of pulling these open. Dropping the vole on the carpet, I reached up with my jaws and pulled the handle down, and then pulled back against the door, using all four paws, much like how I had to open the refrigerator. Slowly, against the pressure of the self-closing hinge, I was able to get the door half open. Letting go and quickly snatching the vole from the carpet, I darted inside, right before the door closed on my tail.

Rhonda was at the reception desk, and upon hearing the door open, looked up and saw me standing in the waiting area, vole still clenched in my fangs.

"Oh, you've arrived. I'll go get Rebekah," she said as she got up from her chair.

I swished my tail thankfully, and let her leave the room. Breathing a sigh of relief, I finally started to relax. The whole morning had been tense. Relying on the Vixen to tell time was worrying all in itself. Getting to the bus and actually making it to work sounded like an impossibility. Then there was the chance my magic had worn off overnight. Judging by Rhonda's reaction, that didn't seem to be the case. Still, I had to now keep an eye out for dangers while using magic. Having yesterday's wish fade out in the middle of a work day remained a dangerous possibility.

Rebekah entered the waiting room with Rhonda in tow. As Rhonda sat back down at the reception desk, Rebekah extended her greeting.

"Glad to see you. Welcome to your first day, Redd," she said enthusiastically.

Thanks, I'm glad to be here, I wagged back. Though, I wasn't sure why she was calling me red. Perhaps because of the color of my fur? Rebekah was no stranger to her employees, but springing nicknames on them suddenly was not normal for her. Neither was hiring a fox as a Data Entry Clerk, I conceded.

"Alright then, come right this way for the tour, and I'll take you to your cubical," she continued.

I politely let her parade me around our small office, reintroducing me to the twelve employees I knew well, and the office facilities, as if I didn't know where everything was already. After all, this had been my place of work for the last year. Everyone told me how happy they were to have me join the team, and none of them seemed to acknowledge I wasn't human, or human enough to work here.

"Ok, here's the employee breakroom," she continued. "We have a refrigerator for those that bring their lunch," she said, eyeing the vole in my mouth. "First aid is under the cabinet here, and the bathroom is down the hall, past the elevators. It's communal for this floor."

None of this was news to me, but I swayed my tail in acknowledgement. Leading me to the back of the office area, she took me to my cubical; the same one I had been at as a human.

"And finally, here's your little space of home away from home," she smiled. "Let me know if there's anything I can get for you to help you out."

My cubicle was largely unchanged. It must have been an emergency rush job to get me hired, and they hadn't bothered clearing out any of my old stuff. What had changed was the name plate on the cubical, and the moment I saw it, I dropped the vole on the floor with a loud, squeaky, laughing gekker.

REDD FOX

I guess no one said that the magic wish had to be imaginative while it got my job back, and it wasn't like I could use my name anymore. If I had to be known around the office by the name of my species, so be it. I'll just have to tease them back by calling someone Hugh Mann.

Not understanding the humor of the situation, Rebekah looked down at me with concern on her face while I regained composure. "Is something wrong?"

No, no, no, it's fine. My last cubical looked exactly like this, I chirped out, not needing to explain anything to her about why I was laughing. Technically speaking, it was precisely true.

"Excellent, you'll feel right at home then," she replied, but I could still see a hint of worry and confusion on her face. "Go ahead and get settled. I'll be bringing by the first set of documents for you in a couple minutes."

She turned to leave, and I entered the cubicle and hopped up onto my chair. Immediately, I realized this was not going to work. I had not been in front of a computer since I was turned into a fox, and now it was becoming obvious that I should have thought it through a little better. Yes, my paws were a bad match for the keyboard, but I expected a chance to learn to finger peck with my claws. What I didn't think about was the way my quadrupedal body had to sit at a desk. If I sat in the chair, I had to lean too far forward, and brace myself with at least one forepaw on the desk. This meant I could only ever type with one paw at a time, and that was assuming I could get the dexterity to not slap the keys with my leathery pads after each stoke. I tried standing like a human at the desk, but it was a no-go, because I was only three feet tall on my hind paws, which meant I could barely get my muzzle over the edge of the desk. Not to mention, not having the spine for standing for long periods anymore would be ruinous by the end of the day. Returning to my chair, I tried laying my chest across the armrest, and dangling my paws below it. With the right adjustments to get my keyboard under them, it just might work. Jumping back down to the floor, I began to paw at the levers under the chair to raise it up as high as it would go.

Rebekah returned with an armload of papers and dropped them on the desk. Seeing me on the floor under the chair, she asked, "Anything I can help you with down there?"

Uh, yeah, I need the seat and the arm rests at their highest, I huffed through my nose.

She reached down and gripped the lever and pulled it down, while taking her other hand and squeezing the release button for the arm rest to raise it up. The adjustments were complete in three seconds, flat, and she did both at the same time. Smiling warmly, she said, "The first batch is on the desk. Feel free to let me know if there's anything else I can help you with," and then she turned and left.

I watched her leave, and felt a bit of envy at how easy it was for her to adjust the chair. It was hard being reminded of the simple things I had lost when I became a fox. Returning once more to the seat of the chair, I pawed at the keyboard until it was at the edge of the desk, and then hung myself over the padded armrest by my fluffy chest. In theory, it was a good idea: I no longer had to stabilize myself with one of my paws while I typed, however, in no way did it help me improve my ability to type with two paws. I wasn't sure what was causing the biggest issue, but somewhere between having the entire weight of the front half of my body resting against my chest, and finding that vulpine limbs are much better for forward and backward movement than side to side, as a keyboard needs. Frustration mounting, I pulled myself off of the arm rest and returned to a normal sitting position on the chair with my legs curled under me.

The stack of papers Rebekah left loomed to my right on the desk. I had always heard the expression about being up to your elbows in work, but I had never had elbows short enough to make it literally true. It was at least half my height while on all fours, and with a sinking feeling, I realized I had no thumbs to turn the pages with. One step at a time, I breathed to myself. I still had the first page to enter into the computer. Balling my pads tight, like I was about to dig or scratch, I poked the keyboard with the claws on my center digits, and the correct key appeared on the screen! A few taps and prods later, I had managed to enter the patient's name from the top of the stack. The going was extremely slow, but I was making better time than I had thought. Any progress was better than I thought!

The first page of data took fifteen minutes to enter, while it normally would have taken me one, but I got it done with liberal use of the backspace key. Thankfully, that key was larger and easier to press with my paw. Turning to the stack of work next to me, I cocked and twisted my head, trying to think of a way I could pick up or move just one piece of paper from the top with my paws. Near the reception desk, I head a brief commotion as one of my coworkers entered the office.

"Tyler's back!"

"Welcome back, Tyler. How are you feeling today?" asked Rebekah.

"Much better, thank you," replied Tyler, wryly smiling with a raspy voice.

I peered around the corner of my cubicle to see Tyler and our boss walking towards my area. His desk was on the other side of my partition, and he was sick all the time, so I was sure I had a few sick days to blame on him over the last year. Despite that, he did a good job as our data analyst, so he got just enough leeway for how often he was ill. Today, it looked like he was barely healthy enough to get out of bed, yet he had made it to work anyway.

"I have a lot of work to catch up on," he told her, as he sat down at his desk and turned on the computer.

"Don't be spreading any bugs around the office," Rebekah cautioned, leaning against his partition. "We're behind enough already."

"I won't," was his gravely reply.

Rebekah turned around and walked to her office. With Tyler clacking away at his keyboard next door, I returned to trying to figure out the best way to handle my stack of papers. Trying not to think about where I had walked today, I licked my right paw until it was damp, and while bracing the top page with my left paw, I swiped them together to cause the top page to bow upwards. Taking the protruding page in my fangs, I placed it next to the stack, and continued reading. There was a sopping wet paw print on the first page, but no one really needed these paper records once I was done with them. Wagging my tail happily at my success, I started to slowly type with my claws again to get the next page entered into the computer.

Three words and five mistakes in, I slammed my paws down on the keyboard in frustration, leaving garbled gibberish on the screen. My right paw was already cramping up from holding it so tightly, and while I had no idea how vulpine ergonomics worked, I could tell leaning on my left paw was putting too much weight on my shoulder for too long. Slumping back to sitting on all fours in my seat, I tried to consider my options. The biggest problem I was facing was the absolute lack of manual dexterity with my paws. It wasn't enough to lift my paw and put it on the keyboard, it had to be accurate within an inch, and most of the motion had to come from my elbow and shoulder. Not only did I not have proper fingers anymore, my wrists weren't good for typing either.

For a moment, I considered using magic to tell Rebekah that I had completed my work. The magic had provided her with the perception of everything she needed to hire me, including a blank sheet of paper that looked like a resume, maybe it could convince her that the data was entered into the computer. Ultimately, I decided to try just a little harder before I would start to cheat. If I went ahead and convinced everyone I was working when I wasn't, the entire company could fail while they all struggled to fix problems on the computer they couldn't see.

I cocked my head from side to side with my ears perked up, staring at the keyboard, trying to think of a way I could salvage this endeavor. Curiously, I poked my black nose at the keys, feeling that sniffing them would give me more insight, and that's when it struck me: my neck had the articulation I was missing in my wrists! While my nose was too big to hit individual keys, all I needed was a tool to hold in my mouth to poke them. Sniffing around the desk, I found my forgotten cup of pencils and pens in the dusty corner of the desk, nearly squished against the partition. Most of my job was on the computer, and I hadn't needed the company-provided writing implements over the last year. Gingerly reaching over, I took one of the pencils from the cup in my fangs, and holding it eraser end out, I bobbed my neck down, poking a key with the rubber eraser. Success! I planted the pencil firmly on the key without any shaky over-compensation or poor aim. The best part was, I could still use my paws on some of the bigger key presses, like the spacebar. Clearing off the junk characters I had created from slamming my paws down, I continued to peck and prod out the second page, taking only five minutes to complete it.

Licking my paw for more friction, I bunched up the top page and removed it from the stack so I could start the third sheet. Glancing briefly at the clock in the corner of the computer screen, I was shocked to see that an hour had gone by already, and I had managed only two pages so far. If I wanted to keep my job, I was going to need to make up for lost time. I picked up the pencil again, and started typing as fast as I could with the eraser tip.

Above me, I heard Tyler clear his throat. He was looking down at me with a confused expression on his face. Looking back up at him, I let the pencil that was hanging in my mouth fall from my black lips, and I gave a quick yip, Hey, what's up, Tyler, forgetting he hadn't been introduced to the fox me yet.

He didn't reply. Instead, he raised his gaze over the whole office, and asked loudly, "Why is there a fox in here?"

If I had been holding the pencil still, it would have dropped from my gaping jaw. He could see me. They said he had been out sick yesterday, and so he wouldn't have been enchanted when I cast my spell on the office. I started to panic, and just before I jumped off my chair to rush to the door, I heard a perturbed reply from Rebekah, "Do you have a problem with our new Data Entry Clerk?"

Tyler looked stunned, "Our new Data Entry Clerk," he repeated incredulously, "Have you lost your mind?!"

Rebekah's tone became dangerous, "Tyler, if you have a problem with the personnel selections here, I ask you approach me in private instead of airing it over the office."

"Why?" Tyler demanded, "it's just a fox. It can't understand us."

I felt like I should have been insulted, but instead, I was just amused.

"Tyler, we all met him this morning before you got here," I heard Rhonda say from the other side of the room, "Redd's been very nice, and you're the only one that has a problem with him."

"Not you too!" shouted Tyler, desperation on his face as he searched the room for any strands of sanity from his coworkers. "How did it get in here? Did you let it in?"

Actually, I let myself in, I barked with a squeak to him. It wasn't meant to be a joke, but the whole office burst out laughing at my quip.

Tyler was at a loss for words. Everyone in the office was acting so strange. Horrified, he looked down, and made eye contact with me, looking to anyone that could explain what the hell was going on. I just winked a golden eye back at him, and picked up the pencil from the desk with my mouth, and began poking the keyboard again while he hovered over me, speechless. Slowly, he sank back down into his cubicle, defeated and questioning his own sanity. He was chattering under his breath, and my sharp ears were able to hear every word he said to himself.

"Why is everyone acting insane? Am I insane? How sick was I this week? Did that fox actually wink at me? Foxes don't use computers. That fox was using a computer. This has to be a prank. They are trying to get me off-guard. I bet there's hidden cameras around..."

Tyler wasn't known for having paranoid delusions, but I think we may have broken him today. In his defense, I probably would be acting the same if there was a wild animal in the office, and everyone told me it was an employee. Hearing him having a sudden mental breakdown did make me feel a bit bad, and while I could enchant him like everyone else, the Vixen's warnings still rang in my head. Tyler wasn't in my way, so risking a spell on him seemed foolish. Operating without magic was going to be tough, but until I got a better explanation from the Vixen, I had to limit myself to uses where it seemed more risky to not use The Flame. Returning to my work, I decided I would have to find a way to make it up to Tyler later.

---

An hour passed. Tyler had stopped muttering to himself and was only making sounds by clicking his keyboard from time to time, but he would pause and stand up to look at me if I made any foxy noises like scraping my claws on the desk, or replying to Rebekah when she would come to check my progress. I had managed to complete nine pages so far, and even with my pencil trick, I was getting pretty tired of typing due to the constant bobbing up and down with my head. It was time to take a break. Jumping down from my chair, I strolled out of the cubicle towards Reception. Tyler took the moment to lean out of his cubical to watch me leave with intense curiosity, but I kept moving and ignored him. Rhonda was at the front desk, going over some contact cards. As I approached, she looked up at me.

"Are you going out?" she asked.

Yeah, I need a bathroom break. Are you going to be here? It will be much easier if you can let me back in.

"Yes. Certainly."

Thank you. I'll be back in a minute.

"Do you know where the restrooms are?" she offered, trying to be as helpful as possible.

Yeah, I'm sure I can find them. I wagged back as I pawed the door handle and pushed the door to get out.

I had been holding back for a while, just trying desperately to get into the groove of working in an office as a fox. The Vixen's insistence that I see The Flame when I woke up meant I had no morning bathroom relief. Making my way past the elevators, I found the door to the community bathrooms, and shoved open the door by placing my fuzzy paws against it.

Public bathrooms are rarely clean enough, but being a fox in one was overpowering. Normally, the strong scented air fresheners and daily janitorial maintenance were good enough to cover up the bad smells in the room, but to my damp nose, all I could smell was lavender and fecal matter. Resisting the urge to leave and find a potted plant to lift my leg on, I stepped forward and entered the restroom properly. Claws clicking and scraping on the ceramic floor tiles, I pushed open a stall to use and instantly wished I hadn't. A hundred smells of a hundred people doing their business in that stall assaulted my nose, and I almost started to gag. Even if it was perfectly clean, I didn't think I could use the toilet properly anyway. I needed a tub to urinate in. My practice for the last week had proved it to be so. Instinctively, I started to sniff around to find an alternative, but that was a mistake, as the overpowering smells started to cause me to need to defecate. Running over to the drainage grate in the floor between the stalls, I squatted down, lifted my tail, and relieved myself fully.

It wasn't until after I finished urinating that I realized my tactical error. The urine was traveling back down the grate with a watery gurgle, but the solids were sitting on top of it, challenging anyone entering the bathroom to deal with them. I plastered my ears back in guilt for the mess I had made, but it was too late to rectify. Neither my paws or my mouth were ever going to pick up that mess, and the longer I stayed in here, the more likely it was going to end up with a twin. Quickly, I leapt up on to the counter to wash my paws in the sink. Stepping into the porcelain bowl was enough to activate the motion faucets, so I sat with my fluffy tail across the counter, keeping the warm water pouring on all four paws. After enough rinsing, I was satisfied that I wouldn't be licking much bathroom matter from my paws today, so I hopped down and began to claw at the door to leave. I may have been clawing at the door for several minutes if someone else didn't enter right then. Leaping out of the way, the door swung inwards, and I scurried around the edge of the doorjamb before the person entering would notice the fox on the floor beneath his vision. Slinking back through the hall, I reached the office door before my fox ears heard a faint "What the fuck?!" being shouted from the bathroom. Frantically, I started to paw at the glass on the office door to grab Rhonda's attention. Looking up at me from her work, she rose from her chair and walked over to the door to open it for me.

Thanks, I quietly yipped, just as a much louder "What the FUCK!" sounded from down the hall.

"Ooh, someone is having a bad day," Rhonda remarked as I trotted past her.

Yeah, this is supposed to be a professional environment, I snorted with disgust.

I couldn't be sure what upset the bathroom occupant so much, but I had a strong feeling it was because of the turd I left on the floor. Wasting no time, I slunk quietly to my desk in the back office so I could stay out of sight.

A few minutes later, I was back to work with the pencil in my mouth, just about ready to turn the next sheet over, when there was the sound of angry shouting coming from the reception counter. Knowing I could stay invisible to anyone that would see me as a fox, I carefully crept up to the front of the office to see the damage I had done.

"I want you to stop hiding them and bring them out here now," demanded a man at the counter. He was dressed in an expensive business suit, and wore a neatly shaven goatee on his face. Worst of all, he smelled strongly of my dung.

Rhonda insistently replied, "I assure you sir, no one has brought their pets to work today."

"Bullshit!" the man spat. "There were wet paw prints leading up to this office door, and something brushed my leg when I was entering the bathroom."

"I wouldn't know anything about that, sir," Rhonda said defiantly. "We have a strict no-pet policy in this office, as is our agreement with the building management. "Any employee bringing a dog to work would be sent home."

"There was a fox in here today," a raspy voice from behind me chimed in. It was Tyler. The shouting must have caught his attention too.

"A fox?" the man repeated. "Who the hell brings a fox into an office building?"

"Oh Tyler, not this again," moaned Rhonda from her desk.

"Yeah, they brought a fox in here this morning, just to screw with me for being out sick. Printed out a name tag for it and trained it to use the computer. Yeah, I saw your dumb joke, Rhonda. Redd Fox."

Rhonda stammered, trying to come up with something to say back, while the man, who initially was excited to hear there was an animal in the office to exact vengeance on, quickly became incredulous the more Tyler spoke.

"Are you fucking with me?" the man said, in a low, menacing tone.

"No, he's serious, our new employee's name is Redd Fox," said Rebekah, finally appearing on the scene, arms folded over her chest. "Why he thinks it's funny to act like he's an actual fox is beyond me, but no one is laughing."

Tyler spun around, ready to start shouting about how crazy everyone was being, but seeing the glare on Rebekah's face, he closed his mouth and quietly walked back to his desk.

Realizing he wasn't getting anywhere, the man decided to appeal to basic decency. "Look, I don't need to hear about your office pranks. I just need someone to pay for the cleaning of this suit. Just tell me who is responsible."

"I'm afraid no one here is," said Rebekah, diplomatically. "Now please continue your interrogations elsewhere. This is a private business."

Defeated and dejected, the man turned around to head for the door, revealing the brown streak down the back of his suit. I couldn't figure out how he managed to have that happen after I left the bathroom, but it was probably good I wasn't around when it did.

Looks like he's barking up the wrong tree, I joked with a soft gekker.

Rebekah looked down at me with a mirthful smile, but her expression turned serious. "It wasn't you that brought a pet to work today, was it?" she questioned. "You're new and might not know the rules here."

Of course not, I yipped. I have to ride the bus to get here, after all.

"Hm, very well," she murmured. Turning back towards her office, she said, "Get back to work, please."

I obliged and headed back to my cubicle. Hopping up to my seat again, I hoped this would be the last interruption today.

---

It was another fifteen pages before I got disturbed again. From behind me, Karl from accounting was leaning over the cubicle wall.

"Hey Redd, we're ordering some pizza. Do you want any?"

I had been so focused on learning to do my job as a fox that I had tuned everything else out entirely, even my aching hunger. My gaze flitted to the lifeless vole on my desk, now half buried under finished papers.

Yeah, I'll take a slice if you have any extra, I wagged at him with a yip. Truth be told, I was hungry enough to eat a whole pizza, but I didn't think my tiny fox stomach could hold that much.

Tyler stood up at the sound of my vocalization, eyeing us both suspiciously. Karl nodded at him, and offered lunch as well, "How about you, you want anything Tyler?"

Tyler just looked between the two of us, and replied "How long are you going to keep this game up?"

Karl's friendly expression fell into a scowl. "God, Tyler, what's wrong with you today? Did your fever give you brain damage?"

"No..." Tyler reacted. He trailed off, like he was trying to come up with a snappy line to retort with, but lamely fell short of producing anything witty.

Karl waited a moment. "...Well? Do you want pizza or not?"

"Fine. Get me a pepperoni," Tyler finally managed to blurt out. Seeing me staring at him expectantly, he added, "But I'm not sharing any with him!"

"Wow. Ok," Karl said, sending me a knowing expression before he returned to his department to place the order.

While our introduction this morning was hilarious, Tyler was not handling himself well today. I suppose having your sanity challenged constantly by a whole office full of people was bound to break anyone eventually. It was time for a peace offering. Dropping from my chair again, I made my way over to the employee breakroom, and sat in front of the glass window of the vending machine. There were so many options, and being so short meant it was hard to see all of them at once. Still, after a few moments of surveying the selection, I spotted the bag of cheese-flavored crackers I saw Tyler eating all the time, marked under D5. I very nearly pushed over a chair to hit the buttons on the machine with my paws, but I realized I still had no pockets or cash. Instead, I decided it was time to use magic again. If I didn't resolve this Tyler situation soon, he was bound to make a rash decision and call animal control on me. Looking around me to make sure the room was empty; I began to focus hard on wanting the crackers. I need the crackers from D5 to fall.

*WISH*

Blue light filled the machine against its fluorescent illumination, and the bag on D5 started to sag limply, until it fell through the rings and landed in the retrieval bay. I pushed my head through the safety door, and nipped the edge of the bag with my fangs to withdraw it.

Hastily, I trotted back to Tyler's cubicle. His back was turned to me, so I dropped the bag to the floor with a light crinkle. Tyler was still absorbed in whatever he was doing on his computer, so I gave a quick squeak, Hey!

Tyler spun around so fast, I took a step back in surprise. He began to size me up, trying to figure out what I was there for, but then noticed the bag of crackers on the floor. "Did you... did you bring these for me?" he tentatively asked.

"YIP!" I exclaimed, and with a smile, I gave him a wink.

"....Thaaaanks," he said cautiously, and he bent forward in his chair to grab the crackers from the floor, but he never fully broke eye contact.

I turned around and trotted back to my side of the cubicle partition, my tail raised happily in the air. A bag of crackers wasn't going to get Tyler to accept a fox as his coworker, but it might be enough to settle him down for today.

Back at my desk, I reached out to pick up the pencil again, but it scooted away from my fangs and rolled to the back of the desk. Plastering my muzzle against the desktop, I chased after it with the side of my face, trying to get it to stay in my mouth, and as I did so, I bumped the half-buried vole with my damp nose. The corpse was now cold and stiff, as rigor mortis had set in. Whatever small chance I had of eating it today was gone completely. Carefully, I picked up the vole in my fangs, and deposited it in the trash can under my desk. I didn't know if the Vixen would be unhappy with me for wasting food, but I

know I felt bad. Maybe after the work week, I could let her show me the finer points of fox cuisine--or maybe after I've finished the frozen food in my fridge. There was no rush.

Just... Ick.

A quick hop up onto my chair, and with the bracing aid of a paw, I was able to get the pencil back into my mouth to continue work. Bringing the next sheet of paper in front of me, I heard the sounds of Tyler in the next cubicle starting to rustle the cracker packaging and then begin snacking. At least he was accepting the gift, I thought to myself as I began to transcribe the document. After another six documents were entered into the machine, the smell of pizza began to waft around the office. Lunch had arrived.

"Tyler, come get your food," Karl called out from the other side of the office.

As hungry as I was, I had told Karl I would eat their leftovers, so I decided to enter in another sheet or two before heading over to the breakroom for my meal. I was getting into the groove again, and not even my hunger was going to distract me right now. Licking my paw, I bunched up the next page and brought it next to me so I could work on it. Moving the whole stack next to me would have been difficult, and likely to topple it if I pushed it towards my work area, so I had to leave it where Rebekah had left it on the desk. It had been saving a lot of time by moving each sheet next to the keyboard instead of glancing back and forth to the top of the pile behind me. Ballparking my time per sheet, this had shaved off almost a minute on average. I knew I wasn't going to get the gigantic pile done today, but I had hoped I could put a nice dent into it before the day was out.

Pecking away at the keyboard, I heard the sound of someone come up behind me, their lips smacking with the pizza they were eating.

Yeah, Karl, I'll get some food in a minute, I whimpered with the pencil in my teeth as I kept typing.

Hearing the hollow scrape and clatter of a cardboard box filled with pizza falling to the floor, I spun around in my chair, pencil still hanging from my mouth. It wasn't Karl, it was Tyler, and he was staring at me, shock and astonishment frozen on his face.

"You're... You're typing words?" he breathed in disbelief. His face had gone pale, and his pallid face flushed further from sheer amazement.

I rolled my golden slitted eyes at him, and turned back around to the computer, but the smell of the pizza was getting too distracting. Placing the pencil back on the desk, I hopped down from the chair and met Tyler on the outside of the cubicle partition. Earlier in the day, I would have expected him to keep a safe distance between us, but now, he stood his ground as I approached. His box of pepperoni pizza was standing on its edge, leaning against my cubicle, the pizza inside reduced to a sloppy pile of sauce and cheese. Making my best effort to telegraph my intent, I stared at the box at Tyler's feet, and then glanced up at him before returning my gaze to the box.

Tyler had regained a little bit of his senses, but not enough to recall his vow earlier to not share the pizza. "You want some pizza, boy? Is that what you're asking?"

Making eye contact with him, I nodded my head, and Tyler jumped a little as I did so. Directly replying like that may have been just as startling as speaking English again. Slowly, legs shaking from his emotional state, he bent down onto his knees and picked up the box of pizza and opened it carefully. Finding a slice to peel out of the doughy wad, he parted the clump of sauce and cheese, and held it up for me to take. Gently, I reached forward and nipped the food so I could pull it from his fingers. Turning away from him, I greedily gobbled down the cheesy wad. It was delicious, and my first real meal of the day. Licking my muzzle clean, I turned back to see if he would give me more. Tyler had completely forgotten that it was his pizza he was holding. Instead, he was just staring at me in frozen astonishment, with the remains of his pizza in his hands. Unconsciously, he began to peel another slice off the clump to hand to me. I took it from him again, and turned around to consume it. Two slices were going to be enough for now. Turning around again, Tyler had already peeled off a third slice and was preparing to hand it to me. Shaking my head, I poked my wet nose against his shoulder, trying to tell him that he still needs to feed himself. The soft prod of my snout was enough to snap him out of his stupor.

"Er, right, I need to eat too," he admitted out loud. Regaining some of his senses, he looked me over, and asked, "You're able to understand everything I say, aren't you?"

I nodded again.

"How is that possible? No animal is that smart," he continued.

I didn't think I could tell him that magic was real with barks and yips, let alone let him in on such a secret, so I just cocked my head in my best impression of I don't know.

Tyler stood up, and thoughtfully walked past me. Instead of going to the end of the partition to reach his desk, he entered into my cubicle. Dropping the pizza box at the corner of my desk, he started looking over the papers on the desk with my wet paw marks on them, and then he grabbed my keyboard to start paging through the records I had entered on the computer. The more he paged through, the more his head started to shake back and forth in confusion. Reaching back to the first record I entered this morning, he turned to me.

"I don't believe this. You're actually doing work here. Just how smart are you?"

Again, giving an accurate answer was going to be difficult, and so I just cocked my head again.

Tyler furrowed his brow, and then reached back to the computer. Opening a notepad program, he gestured to the chair and said, "Here."

I jumped up onto the office chair, and Tyler handed me the pencil. Taking the pencil in my fangs, I looked up at him, waiting for his next question.

"Ok, tell me why you're here, and why am I the only one that can see you're a fox," he requested.

I hesitated. I didn't know how much was safe to tell him. Officially speaking, this would be the first time a human had full conversation with an animal. If I wasn't careful, I could end up locked in a lab for study, or have my face plastered everywhere on the internet as a new celebrity. Neither possibility sounded appealing at all.

Sensing my hesitation, Tyler continued, "Animals don't need jobs, so there must be something important you need here. Tell me about that."

That was an easy answer. I only needed to hit one key.

$

Tyler was impressed that a fox had answered his question with a keyboard, but then his expression narrowed again. "What does a fox need with money?"

Slowly, I pecked out my reply.

pay 4 home

Tyler leaned back against the desk to consider what I had typed. Something about my answer didn't satisfy him. "What kind of home do you have that costs money? Shouldn't you be living in a hole or the woods or something?"

Part of me wanted to tell everything to Tyler, but explaining to him that I had been a human, that magic was real, and that I could use it, would take a lot of time I didn't have right now. I had actual work to do today, and typing out my life story over the last week would keep me from completing my tasks. Instead, I settled for the minimum.

Human house. not hole. 2 smart 4 hole. cN DO BETTER

I had to let the typo slide. This was taking too much time as it was. Tyler took a moment to decipher my message. "Ok, I get that you have higher standards, but that doesn't explain why I'm the only one that sees you as a fox."

I rolled my eyes at him again. I needed to end this quickly.

ur special. much work 2 do. thx 4 food

Tyler looked elated. While the truth would have been a lot less flattering, I needed him gone. Still, it wasn't enough to get him to go away.

"Special, eh? Well, that makes two of us," he said as he ruffled the fur on my head. "Hey, look, I'm sorry for the things I was saying about you earlier. I didn't know you could..." he trailed off, "I didn't know you were contributing," he quickly amended.

I wagged my tail in acceptance of his apology, and began clawing the next sheet off the pile. Before I could make any headway, Tyler interfered. "Here, let me help you with that," and he peeled the next sheet off and set it next to the keyboard. "In fact, you let me know if there's anything I can help you with from now on," he added. Picking up his box of pizza, he leaned again the partition wall and started munching on the clump of bread and cheese, but this time, inside my cubicle.

Maybe I was too nice to him just now. He wasn't going away, and had decided to watch me work while he ate his lunch. If I had been able to hold a verbal conversation with him, I may have found it slightly more tolerable, but hearing his smacking behind me while I silently tried transcribing the documents was too much. Spinning around in the chair, I fixed my golden eyes on him.

"What?" he asked with a slice half shoved in his mouth.

I responded with an impatient growling yip, and then turned back to the screen and nudged my nose against the screen where I told him I had work to do.

"Oh, right. Sorry." Taking the rest of his box of pizza, he left my cube and returned to his area.

With Tyler out of my space and my belly finally filled, I picked up the pencil again and returned to work. The day was already half done, and I had to make up for the lost time.

---

With no more major interruptions remaining for the rest of the day, I managed to complete another sixty or so sheets. The actual count became blurred in my focus on completing each document. About an hour after lunch, I had to spend a few minutes shuffling and consolidating the completed papers on the desk so they wouldn't be in my way. Aside from that, and the occasional surreptitious viewing from a curious Tyler, I had nothing distracting me either.

"Have a good night, everybody," I heard Karl call from across the office.

It was nearing closing time. Karl usually arrived earlier than the rest of the staff, so it was only a matter of time before the rest of the office followed him out. Hurriedly, I pecked away to finish the paper I was on. I had done quite well today for someone with paws, but I still needed to be better. Rebekah didn't know I had paws, and she wouldn't assess my work on the basis of me being a fox. Even an inexperienced newbie should have managed twice what I did today. My only hope was to pull some major overtime. Unfortunately, I was a slave to the bus schedule, and if I didn't leave on time, I only had one more opportunity to catch a bus back home. After that point, I'd need to get a ride home from someone, and everyone was going to be leaving in the next thirty minutes.

A hopeful idea flashed across my mind, and I began to type a message out on the computer. Once finished, I barked Hey, Tyler, across the cubicle wall. He didn't reply, so I yipped again, Hey! Tyler!

Finally, he stood up, and asked "Hey, what's up Redd?" I touched my nose to my monitor, and he murmured "Oh, right," and walked around the cubicle partition. Leaning over my chair, he read my message.

rebekah going 2 flip when she sees work today. need ot 2 get more done. can u take me home?

"Sure boy, er, man. I was going to pull some overtime anyway to make up for my sick days this week," Tyler gleefully replied.

Thanks, I yapped out, wagging my tail.

"Yeah, no problem," he smiled, not needing a translation to know what I had just said. Ruffling my head again, he returned to his desk.

I was impressed with Tyler. After only one day, he went from seeing me as a wild animal to treating me the same as another coworker. If an occasional slipup, like calling me "boy" was the price for that progress, I wasn't going to complain. To him, he was still talking to someone that looks and sounds like a barking dog, and I couldn't say that I would have been any better in his shoes.

A jangle of keys from the corner of the office marked the departure of Rebekah, as she closed and locked her office door. She was usually the last to leave. Quickly, I cleared the message about her from my screen, and then returned to working on the next sheet as I heard her footsteps approach.

"Hey Redd, how was your first day?" Rebekah asked, as she reached my cubicle.

All things considered, I think I did pretty well, I replied. I'm still getting into the swing of things around here.

"That's great!" she said enthusiastically, "How's your progress going on that stack I gave you this morning? Almost done?" Her gaze was resting on the two piles I had next to me.

I placed my paw on the much shorter pile, the one that was, at best, a quarter of the combined stacks. Yeah, still making progress. I was going to pull some overtime tonight with Tyler and try to hammer out some more of this.

"Oh, is that all you've managed to complete today?" she said with a sourly disappointed look in her face. "Well, better luck tomorrow. At least you're getting along with Tyler now," trying to add a positive spin to the conversation.

I forced a gekker, Yeah, communication helps a lot. That, and peace offerings.

Giving a wry smile, she turned towards Tyler's side and told him, "Keep a two-hour limit, OK? I don't need you pushing yourself too hard and getting sick again."

"Right-o, Ma'am," acknowledged Tyler. "Have a good night!"

"Thanks, you too."

I watched Rebekah turn around and leave the office. As the door closed behind her, I felt my heart sink, and desperation start to set in. That look on her face said it all. Rebekah was not the kind of manager that openly expressed her displeasure with employees, but I had failed hard enough that she let her feelings show as much as she just did. There was no doubt in my mind that she was regretting hiring me. If I couldn't double my whole day's work in the next two hours, I would be out of my job within the week. Desperately, I started poking the keys as fast as I could, ignoring as many typos I could get away with. I could pass on fixing names in the data entry, but as long as the numbers were correct, I wouldn't see any repercussions any time soon.

Three pages later, I finally looked up at the screen to see what I had been typing, as my paw hadn't touched the backspace key the whole time. While my speed had improved moderately, the results were dismal. Every name, location, and procedure had something wrong with it, and it was going to take forever to correct now. I had too much pride in my work to leave it in this state. Heaving a deep sigh, I placed my paw on the backspace key, and removed the last ten minutes of frantic typing. There had to be a better way.

I sat at my desk, staring at the keyboard, trying to think of some way I could use it with my paws. Magic was the only answer I could think of, but I sensed this would be no ordinary wish. Every spell I had willed into reality was always singular or very broad. I could open a door, or convince a group of people that I wasn't there, or cloud their minds so I could be perceived as a human, but typing on a keyboard was different. Typing on a keyboard meant hundreds or thousands of tiny actions in a specific order. Willing each key to fall and print the character on the screen couldn't have been faster than what I was already doing, and broadly willing the paperwork to be typed, most likely would cause random keys to enter themselves, only designed to fool any human looking at the screen. That would satisfy Rebekah, but a computer would just see the gibberish the spell typed for me, and be unusable. There was a remote chance I could enchant the computers, but I would have to know the contents of every page next to me to will into its databanks. Considering my promise to the Vixen to keep away from dangerous magic use, both broad and singular options seemed far too dangerous.

Looking down at my black furred paws, I began to flip one over by bracing it against the desk. Clenching my pads, I watched as my stubby, leathery digits curled around my metacarpal pad, and my claws angled themselves to dig or catch some unsuspecting prey. Nothing about my paw looked capable of typing, and yet, while I looked at it, I could still see a shadow of the hand I once had. I still had four fingers, and my dewclaw was basically a thumb. My palms were now long and furry, but they were still there. Maybe, if I used magic on myself, I could untransform my paws enough to type again.

I closed my eyes, and began to picture my paws in my mind's eye. Carefully, I changed the image to be a compromise of my paws and human hands. The padded digits became longer and more flexible, the palm shorter, and my dewclaw just long enough to grip something simple. They still would be paws, but they would be paws I could use at the office. Taking a deep breath through my wet nose and concentrating, I whimpered aloud, I wish my paws were as I envision.

...

Nothing happened. I opened my eyes, and my paws were still on the desk, completely unchanged. Like on the bus, the wish felt hollow. Huffing in frustration, I closed my eyes again, bringing the handpaws to mind, and demanded, I need my paws to be more like hands!

...

Still nothing. My mind shifted to thinking what was about to happen if I didn't get my paws changed. I thought about how I would lose my job, and my house. I thought about being stuck as a fox, living in the woods and eating raw voles. I thought about living in a dirty hole in the ground. I thought about being hunted by larger animals, or humans for my fur. I thought about how I could end up dead on the side of the road and no one would mourn me. With one final burst of desperation, I barked, I need handpaws, now!

*WISH*

I felt the magical energies surge within me, and they flooded out in a massive rush, but something was still hollow and wrong. Red light filled my vision. Brilliant red, like I had not seen since I had been a fox. The red light burst out of me and shot towards my paws and then bounced off of them. Ricocheting around the cubicle, the red glow bounced off my computer screen, and then the stack of papers, into the air and off the tiled ceiling, and then into the next cubicle over. Immediately, the void twisted in my gut, and I doubled over with a loud yelp, and fell off my chair onto the floor. It felt bottomless and consuming, and my whole body ached while it throbbed and hungered in my stomach. The Vixen's warnings echoed in my mind, and I suddenly realized the void was the danger she warned me about, and everything became clear. It was the source of my magic, and I had likely emptied it all at once. Shaking, I slowly opened my eyes against the slowly dulling pain, and through blurred vision, I looked at my paws as I laid on the floor. Black and furry, they were still unchanged. Just as I started to crawl back to all fours, a panicked scream came from Tyler's cubicle.

Filled with dread, I rushed out of my cubicle and around to his side of the partition. Tyler's back was turned to me as I entered his workspace. What's wrong, Tyler? I whimpered.

Shaking, Tyler slowly turned to face me. His arms were outstretched in front of him, and he couldn't tear his eyes off of them. Covered in black fur up to his elbows, his hands had become completely transformed into fox paws. "What's happening to me?" He sobbed.

Tyler, I... I apologetically whimpered, and a tear streamed down my cheek, but there was no apologizing for what I had just done. He was turning into a fox, just like me, and just like the woman from the bus. Any chance I had to fix this was gone with the energy I expended to cast the spell. Ears plastered back, and tail hanging between my legs, I slowly lifted a paw to step forward to try to comfort him.

"Stay away!" Tyler squeaked, as he held up a padded paw to shoo me away. His nose was black and his face was starting to protrude into a muzzle. "Did you do this to me?!" he yelled angrily as I stopped.

There were no words in Fox, or any human tongue I could have said to answer him properly._ It was an accident_, I sorrowfully whined. I laid down on the floor and rested my white chin on the carpet.

Whiskers were poking out of Tyler's face, and white fur was creeping out of the skin on his neck. Spinning around, Tyler grabbed at his desk phone and knocked the receiver off the hook. Frantically, he began mashing his pads on the numbers. I could recognize the touch tones for 911 coming from the receiver as he dialed. A bulge started to press out from the seat of his pants as he hunched over his desk.

Tyler, please, they can't do anything for you, I whimpered. _ It will be too late and you don't know what they will do to you._

Tyler ignored me. Either he couldn't understand Fox yet, or he wasn't listening. His pant legs were starting to sag, and I could see him standing on his toes in his shoes. On the receiver, I heard the dispatcher answer the phone.

"911, What's your emergency."

Tyler bent over and put his black pointed ear against the phone on the desk. "Help! I need medical assistance, I'mmmrrrr-- AWoOOWOO!"

So shocked by his sudden outburst, Tyler clasped his paws over his muzzle, only to shock himself again when he found how pointy and furry his face had become. Quickly, he bent over again and tried to speak into the phone clearly.

"Yip! BARK! YIP!"

Tyler's voice was gone completely. Taking a step backwards, his new hind paw left his shoe, and he stumbled backwards, falling to all fours.

"It's another fox prank again," said the voice over the receiver, and then the line clicked off.

Now eye-to-eye, Tyler locked his vulpine gaze on mine, the expression on his dark hazel slits still trying to understand what just happened. Slowly, his expression began to soften from fear and panic to something more relaxed and normalized. Wagging his tail, Tyler gave a soft "yip" before crawling out of his loose clothes.

I whimpered softly. Can you understand me now?

Tyler's muzzle cracked wide open, and he panted happily. Merrily lunging forward, he playfully licked the end of my snout.

Tyler, are you ok? I asked. I didn't know what was more terrifying; the fact I had turned him into a fox with a spell, or the fact that he seemed to be enjoying it after being traumatized by his transformation. Tyler didn't respond to my question. Instead, he started sniffing the air, and prancing around the cubicle, looking like he was searching for something. _ _

Stop, Tyler, I commanded. You're freaking me out.

He stopped trotting around in circles and sat down, looking at me with his head cocked to the side. He wasn't showing any sort of human behavior at all. A cold chill came over me, and I felt my hackles raise just a bit.

Tyler, what's two plus two? I asked calmly.

Tyler cocked his head in the opposite direction. He had no idea what I was asking of him. Scratching his chin with his hind paw, he stood up on all fours and bolted past me and out of the cubicle. Quickly, I got up and turned to follow him.

Tyler didn't get far. Before he reached the end of the partition, he stopped suddenly and dipped into my cubicle, sniffing the air. Tyler! I called after with a yip, but his fluffy tail disappeared into my workspace. Chasing after him, I reached my cubicle, and found Tyler with his head in my waste basket, chowing away at something left in here.

Tyler! I barked angerly, realizing what it was. Get out of there!

Tyler raised his head from the bin, smacking his lips from the remains of the vole he had just consumed. Unlike me, he didn't have any issues eating long dead, raw voles. However, now that he was a fox too, my only chance of getting home was catching the late bus.

We must hurry. We have to catch a bus, or we will be walking home tonight, I told Tyler. He seemed to understand there was some urgency in my words, so he snapped to attention, and watched me intently for my next move.

Seeing Tyler acting so carefree was enthralling, but worrisome as well. As a human, he had been uptight and stressed constantly; I would expect it was part of the reason why he was sick all the time. But now, my errant spell had reduced him to an animal. For all intents and purposes, I had destroyed the person I knew. He still knew his name when I talked to him, and his obedience wasn't out of character for him, but it was excessively exaggerated. How much of Tyler remained in that fuzzy head? One thing was for sure, he wasn't coming back to work ever again. The pile of clothes we left in his cubicle had to be removed before we left. Anyone coming in tomorrow was going to wonder why Tyler had stripped naked and left the office.

Come, I called to Tyler, we need to get rid of your old clothes before we leave. We both trotted back to his side of the partition. Gripping the handle in my teeth, I pulled a filing cabinet open to see if there was space inside for the clothing. Thankfully, aside from a stash of snacks Tyler kept in there, it was empty. I began to nudge and bundle his clothes together, and Tyler dutifully grabbed his shoes and put them in the bottom of the cabinet. Before I could grip his shirt enough to put it in, he quickly dipped his head into the cabinet and nipped the edge of a bag of crackers and darted off to eat them. With the shirt loaded into the cabinet, I started to drag his khakis in as well. Just as I started to lift, there was a light thud as something fell out. It was his cellphone.

I just stared at the device for a moment as it rested on the floor. It had been a whole week that I was looking to get mine back, and suddenly, Tyler's was sitting right here for me to take, and he was in no shape to use it anymore. I didn't know if I was in any shape to use it anymore, but at least I still knew how. A loud rustle of a wrapper, and some crunching outside of the cubicle snapped me back into the moment. I grabbed a mouthful of pants and dropped it into the cabinet, and then turned around and kicked the drawer closed with my hind paw as I picked up the phone with my jaws.

Ok, we're leaving, I snorted through the phone in my mouth. Tyler looked up from his eviscerated cracker wrapper and began to follow along as I scampered towards the reception desk. At least, I mused, the fox formerly known as Tyler still liked his crackers.

The sitting room was lit dimly, after Rhonda left. Trotting up to the double doors, I asked Tyler to open them for me with a quick chirp. I didn't want to put down the phone just yet, and this seemed to be a good test for Tyler. Obediently, Tyler put his jaws on the door handle and pulled down, but I couldn't tell if he meant to, or if gravity was helping. Either way, I was pleased that he knew opening a door started with the handle. Pushing against the door, we shoved it open enough to leave. Once in the hall, I took the lead to the elevators.

I still had my paws free for operating the elevator, so I took the liberty of pressing the call button. Tyler began sniffing around the hallway while I waited for the car to arrive. He sniffed his way across the floor, and almost made it to the restrooms before the doors slid open. Giving him a quick, muffled bark to come back, he darted through the hallway and into the car before the doors fully finished closing.

Brace yourself, this is going to be weird, I whined to him as I pressed the button for the ground floor. Startled by the motion, Tyler tucked his ears and tail back while he braced himself against the floor. I wasn't feeling too great either by the descent, but I had other things on my mind, like getting home and dealing with the stabbing feeling of the void in my belly. Maybe the Vixen would know what to do.

The elevator reached the 1st floor lobby, and the doors slid open. It was late enough that most of the occupants of the building had left, and the sunlight filtering in through the windows in the raised ceilings was yellowed from the approaching dusk. Tyler and I left the elevator, and made our way towards the glass doors, our claws clacking lightly on the floor. Yesterday, I had blown open the door with magic, but the thought of doing the same now felt exhausting. I didn't think I still had the magic left in me to do it again.

Tyler, help me pull open the door, I tapped my paws on the tiled floor. Loyal as always, Tyler jumped ahead and began scratching at the space between the doors to try to get a grip on the glass. Thankfully, due to some quirk of modern aesthetic design, the doors weren't designed to shut solidly like most exterior doors. There was just enough space to get a few claws, and eventually, Tyler's pads between the edges, and we pulled open the glass panes just wide enough for two foxes to get through.

Finally free of the office building, I lead Tyler to the bus stop just a block down the street. I didn't know if I could hide myself with the magic anymore, let alone the two of us, but I had to try anyway. The void began to grate and grind, like nails on a chalkboard, but no one acted like they saw a pair of foxes in the city, so I limped along, and did my best to keep my vision from blurring from the pain. Whatever magic I had left I knew I shouldn't be using, but getting stuck in the city at night sounded far more dangerous. I had to get back to the safety of the countryside. Staggering forward, we reached the bus stop, and as I

dropped the phone and flattened myself on the pavement, rapidly panting against the pain, Tyler kept walking on, looking to explore more.

Tyler. Please. Stay._I panted. _ I can't... keep you safe if you leave. The void gave another heave, and my vision began to tunnel for a moment. There were no other humans waiting at the stop. If no one disembarked from the bus, I wasn't going to be able to stop it like I did in the morning. Tyler turned around and sat next to me, and held still as I asked. He seemed oblivious to the pain I was in, but at least he still was listening to my commands.

We were waiting for only a minute or two before the bus arrived. Picking up the phone, I tapped my paws on the pavement at Tyler to tell him to get ready to jump into the bus. As luck would have it, someone did disembark from the vehicle, so Tyler and I took the opportunity to dart in through the open door as they left.

Once in the bus, I led Tyler to a bench, and we sat down together, barely taking up a single seat with our small bodies. After we were seated and the bus began to roll along, I dropped my concentration on our stealth while the passenger count was low. The void released its vicelike grip on my insides, but it still hungered insatiably. Satisfied that we were going to be safe for the moment, I dropped the phone on the seat, and tried to turn it on with a bite across the power button. The screen flared to life, but to my dismay, it asked for a fingerprint to unlock. Tyler didn't have matching prints anymore, let alone proper fingers. Nudging the screen with my nose, I got it to ask for a PIN instead.

Tyler, I hummed in a hushed tone, do you remember your PIN? Tyler just cocked his head at me.

I didn't think so, I said to myself.

Getting on the bus in time would have to be my lucky break for the day. Asking for a working phone was too much. It was a shame; I had been wanting access to a cell phone for over a week, and now that I had one, I wasn't allowed to use it. I just wanted a phone to keep my ties to my human life active, and maybe text my parents to let them know I was alive. After today, I wasn't sure if I could ever reach that goal. I had made two trips into the city, and both had ended in disaster for someone else. Tyler, who was the closest thing I had to a friend, had lost almost everything that made him human, and that woman from the bus was stranded in her apartment, undergoing the same horrors I went through while trying to learn to live as a fox...

Hm... That woman. She had made me feel so good.

The disturbing images of her transforming returned to my mind, but they meant less to me than they did last night. Instead, I thought of the moments leading up to her sprouting fur and whiskers. She had run her hands over me, and made me feel calm and in control after a chaotic day. I didn't have to worry about food, and was able to relax. With the void groaning painfully in my gut, I wanted nothing more than to have that moment again. The more I thought about her, the stronger a sense of serenity came over me.

Tyler, I need a rest, I sighed at him. Stay still and quiet, and whatever you do, do not leave this seat.

He responded by shoving his nose into my ear, which I took as an acknowledgement. Laying my white chin on the bench seat, I closed my eyes, and thought more about the woman petting me until I drifted off.

I was back in the apartment. The room glowed with a faint, flickering purple light, like the room was filed with a thousand unseen candles. From across the kitchen, I heard the woman speak.

"So, you've come back."

In the darkness from across the room, I could make out the shape of her form, but the light wouldn't touch her. Her features still cloaked in darkness, she started to slowly walk forward through the kitchen, like a shadow made solid, consuming the light. It didn't look like the shadow was wearing clothing.

"It seems you couldn't stay away after all. After today, we began to worry."

I was sitting on the sectional sofa, and I could feel its soft upholstery under my paws. The woman had made it as far as the refrigerator, and she seemed to slow further, like she was about to retrieve something from it. Something about seeing the woman like this was very unnerving, and I wanted to get off the couch and flee out the door, but the couch was so soft, it absorbed any motion I made to get off of it. Instead, it began to cradle me softly, making me feel safe and warm.

"I understand you are hungry again," the woman said, now from the edge of the kitchen. "Maybe I can help you feed."

Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the shadow was immediately in front of me. Her inky blackness filling my vision and blocking out the purple light from the room as she leaned over with an outstretched hand. Reaching closer and closer, the shadow slowly placed her hand on my furry chest, and began to stroke it gently. The warmth from her hand flooded over me, and waves of pleasure started to emanate from her touch. I rolled over onto my back, and wagged my tail from her affection. Bending over me, from the blackness of her face, her eyes flared up to reveal bright luminous gold slits in the dark.

Time to wake up, little fox_, she barked._

_ _

With a loud, terrified yip, I jolted awake. The sky had gone dark, and the interior lights were on in the bus. Tyler had been obediently looking out the window while I slept, but with my sudden outburst, he quickly spun around and nibbled at my ear to reassure me. Through some incredible luck, no one had noticed or done anything about the pair of foxes on the bus. I knew I wasn't using magic anymore to protect us; the moment I thought about hiding us again caused the ache of the void to turn sharp.

However, as I watched a passenger rise from her seat from across the bus, I knew that luck had run out. My loud awakening had caught her attention.

Tyler, I growled lightly, _do not let them catch you. If we get separated, head for the country and the woods there. _ Backing into the corner of the bench and against the wall of the bus, I plastered my ears back and huddled with Tyler, trying my best to remain unseen. The tactic did nothing to hide us, but there was little else we could have done. Walking up to our bench, the woman immediately spotted us. "Why hello there, little guys," she said with a soft voice as she sat down in the seat next to us. "How did you get on the bus?"

Not wanting to look the least bit intimidating, I wagged my tail against the wall, and lowered my chin to the seat. Tyler was left half standing over me.

She giggled at my enthusiasm, "You seem quite friendly. Are you someone's pet?" Reaching out her hand to pet me, I let her rub the orange fur on my head. The warmth from her touch was intoxicating.

Rubbing the back of my neck, she continued, "I don't see a collar on you or your friend. You sure are friendly for wild animals." Her petting strayed down from the top of my neck to the underside, where the fur was soft and white.

"I've never petted a fox before. I didn't know you were so... soft"

Her hand moved to the fur on my back. Each gentle stroke of her hand was pure bliss. The ache from the void forgotten, I crawled out from under Tyler and laid on my back with my head on her lap, leaving my downy white belly exposed for her. Without hesitation, she began to massage fistfuls of my chest fur in between her fingers.

"So... soft," she dreamily murmured.

I could feel myself starting to get aroused. The constant petting felt too good, and the exhausting evening demanded this sort of relaxation. I needed it, badly. Noticing that my member was beginning to protrude from my sheath, the woman began to rub my belly, closer and closer to the red flesh. Now stroking just under the ridge of my rib cage, I brought up a paw to try to push her hand lower, she was so close, I just needed her to rub just a little lower. She didn't resist, and just as she wrapped her warm fingers around my foxhood, Tyler shoved himself in between us.

He was excitedly panting and whimpering, and demanding his turn from the woman by slamming his fluffy tail against the back of the bench seat. Still in ecstasy, I winced as Tyler clumsily crawled over me and began trying to lick the woman's face. She released my member and began to pet him consolingly on his head as he licked her face.

"Mm, mm, yes, you're soft and friendly too," she mumbled out, trying to keep the overly enthusiastic fox from licking her in the mouth as she provided her sweet affection. She seemed like she was no longer interested in petting me. As the euphoria drained from me, so did Tyler's enthusiasm. At first, it looked like he was relaxing as she stroked his back and neck, but after a moment, he stopped moving his tail completely. With a heave and a retch, Tyler vomited chewed vole and crackers all over the woman's chest and blouse. I quickly evacuated my head from her lap, but the woman was already standing bolt upright to remove herself from the fox sick covering her. With a disgusted shriek, she ran back to her old seat.

As she left, I felt the void return with a vengeance. Needle-like stabbing pains coursed through my body, and I nearly blacked out as I tried my hardest to clear my thoughts from any desires or wishes that could cause use of my magic. I looked over to Tyler, who still had his ears back from feeling ill while he sat on the bench next to me.

I'm not feeling too good either, bud, I whimpered to him.

He didn't respond, but the smell of vomit on his breath was enough for me to lean away from him.

A short time later, the bus rolled to a stop, and the woman hastily exited the bus. We were only one more stop away from my house. It wouldn't be long before I could see the Vixen again. Maybe she would be able to help me, I pondered. Unlike yesterday, I had kept myself very busy, and didn't spend much time thinking about her. Now, with the unspeakable pain from the void coursing through me, I knew she was my only chance at salvation. She knew how the magic Flame worked, so she had to have a way to fix this. She just had to.

The bus began to slow for our stop, and two other people in the bus rose from their seats to depart. Nudging Tyler, we hopped down from our bench and followed them out the rear exit. A few murmurs of surprise in seeing foxes on the bus followed us out the door, but Tyler and I quickly galloped away down the road. The brisk run lessened the pain of the void, and so we were able to close half the distance between my house and the bus stop before I broke out in a heavy pant and slowed to a casual trot. The more we slowed, the stronger the pain of the void became. Before we made it another hundred yards, a wave of nausea overcame me, and with a teeter, I fell over on the side of the road with my tongue hanging out of the side of my muzzle, panting hard. Concerned, Tyler nudged me with the tip of his nose as I laid on the pavement.

We're almost there,_I said, but it was more to encourage myself to get up than to inform Tyler of anything. _ I just need... a few moments... to rest, I whined through my heaving pants.

Tyler pulled his ears back, and nudged me again. The void lurched, and I snarled against the new flood of agony, causing Tyler to jump back a step. Not... you... I apologized between gasps. He fluttered his tail on the ground, but chose to keep a small distance between us until I recovered. Waiting a few minutes before steadying myself, I slowly and shakily got up to my paws, and started to limp forward. Tyler got up too, and we continued the journey back to my house.

It took another twenty minutes in the waning twilight to reach my driveway, and the sight of my house never felt quite so welcoming. Our tired paws scraped lightly on the pavement, and with Tyler in tow, I reached my front door just as it started to open. I started to sway my tail to greet the Vixen, but instead of the Vixen, a male fox popped out. He looked like he was just departing and had no idea we were standing there. Surprised by seeing the two of us, he stopped short, and looked us over with his golden eyes.

Another one? Don't bring him inside just yet. I've never seen her quite this mad before, he rumbled, before slinking off into the dark.

I watched him go, and then I turned to Tyler, Ok, I guess you need to wait here for a minute. I'll call you inside when we're ready.

Tyler responded by sitting down obediently, so I nudged the door open and went inside the dark house. The Vixen didn't seem to have any issues being in a darkness, but even with my vulpine eyes, I didn't like my house without lights, so I climbed up the wall and flipped the switch on with my nose.

Mate, I heard her growl from behind me.

Returning to all fours, I turned around to see her sitting in the middle of the kitchen, now clean from trash, her golden slits fixed on me with a stern expression. Hey Vixen, I chirped, trying to put on a friendly expression as I felt the void start to kick and stab again.

Hunter fox see vixen in field. Not one of us. Scared of tail. What do? she demanded, cocking her head, but with no curiosity in her expression.

I wanted to tell her what happened the last two days I was out. I wanted to tell her about the woman on the bus last night, how I got my job back, how I accidentally turned my coworker into a fox with a misdirected wish, but sounds wouldn't come out of my throat. Instead, the void raged, searing pain flooded through me, and inky blackness overtook my vision. The last thing I saw before falling to the floor unconscious was the Vixen's panicked face as she rushed up to try to help me.