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Shattered Shards: Witch's Ward

By Von Krieger

Natsumi stood on the doorstep shaking; her teeth clenched tightly, a blush upon her face. She took in deep breaths, trying to calm herself, trying to work up the nerve she would need for the task ahead of her. She ran her fingers over her short, cotton candy pink hair, a reminder of what she had gone through in the preceding weeks. She sighed softly and winced, slowly raising her hand to knock on the door, which opened a moment before her hand moved forward.

She gasped softly, her eyes going wide as the store's owner startled her, the taller woman finding her own actions amusing.

"I never get tired of doing that." She said with a chuckle, "Now, what brings you to knock upon the door of my home just as I'm settling down for dinner?"

"I... I..." Natsumi stuttered, trying to get out the words.

The mocha skinned store owner looked down at the skittish young woman upon the doorstep, her grin widening, "I expect you have something to say? An apology perhaps for something you did around a month or so ago?"

Natsumi's blush deepened and she nodded, "I'm s-sorry. I-it was part of my initiation into the Thieves' Guild, ma'am. I was supposed to take some things from your store without getting caught."

"And for a time you thought you did, didn't you?"

The girl nodded, "Y-yeah, but then..." she sighed, "Anyway, the Guild doesn't want me anymore. They were the only ones that expressed interest in me at the hiring fair."

New Waterdeep's monthly hiring fair, where those seeks jobs and apprenticeships would gather and anyone looking for employees in the manner of Old Aerth would present the potential hire with a scroll with their expected duties and location. Though most places handed out modern business cards, the Thieves' Guild however, slipped them into the pockets of potential trainees, the vanishing ink making the card blank if the target didn't find it upon their person within a few minutes.

"And?" the shopkeeper asked, one brow raised, "This has to do with me how?"

Natsumi seemed to shrink, drawing back and making herself look as non-threatening as possible, her face in a wince, her muscles tight, expecting to be struck for her impertinence for daring to speak the words she did. "I was wondering if you wanted an apprentice for your spellcraft, ma'am." She said through clenched teeth.

The effects of the witch's magic upon Natsumi were obvious to anyone who had laid eyes upon her. The first alteration had shown itself as the girl's hair had grown out, her natural mousey brown replaced by a hot, shocking pink at the roots, several shades more vibrant, but still recognizable as the cotton candy she'd stolen from a street vendor a few blocks from the witch's shop.

The guild had lopped off her hair the moment it was discovered that Natsumi's theft had not quite gone as undetected as she thought. She was left with nothing but memories for her natural hair color.

But the candy hadn't merely colored her hair, it had taken its toll upon the figure of the formally scrawny, narrow thief-in-training. Her hips and rump had grown larger over a span of two weeks, to the point where she needed to buy pants several sizes larger in order to be comfortable.

It looked rather ludicrous for awhile, but then the item that she'd stolen from the witch's shop kicked in. Flat chested and rather shy about it, Natsumi had stolen a tube of bust enlargement cream, which had its advertised effect. The girl's bust had expanded, and expanded, and expanded.

They were now twice as large as the poor girl's head, and drew attention to here wherever she went. Pickpocketing and general sneak thievery were out of the question, and they made her a bit unsteady and ungainly for anything requiring precision or agility. They got in the way when she tried to pick locks; they blocked her view of trapped tiles on the floor and anything else below her chest for that matter.

In short the witch's curse has made quite sure that Natsumi would not be stealing from anyone ever again. She looked ridiculous, with breasts close to the size of beach balls and a rear like two thirds of the same all placed upon a five foot tall frame that was never meant to hold three digits worth of weight.

The witch blinked, her turn to be surprised, "I was expecting you to tell my that you'd learned your lesson and would be asking for me to lift the curses I placed upon you so that you could take on a new career, not ask me for employment."

Natsumi shook her head, "I'm not expecting you to undo the changes that my own actions caused. I did a little study into magic in the Guild's library, and to be honest, it sounds more interesting and challenging than petty theft and robbery. I figured you might prefer me working off my debt to you and learning how to break the curses on my own to me showing up on your doorstep and whining and begging to be changed back."

The witch's smile returned, "You figured correctly. And while I wasn't expecting fortune and fate to provide me one so soon, I had been thinking about acquiring an apprentice to help me with some of the day to day tasks of the store. You can have one of the upstairs bedrooms. I have some old clothes that I can enchant to fit you, and you'll earn a small commission on anything you make or sell. Sound fair?"

It was Natsumi's turn to look surprised; she hadn't expected to be offered what she had asked. Especially without being turned into a lizard or something.

She nodded her head rapidly, "Y-yes ma'am!" she said softly.

"Don't ma'am me, call me Chizura. I'm not one for formality, and you can tell that I'm not one for doing things the way most people do them, either. You already know my policy on shoplifting." She said with a wink. "Now come on in, dinner's ready. I had a feeling I was going to have company, so I went and made enough for two. Now, let's hear all about yourself, see if we can get a good indication of where to start your magical and alchemical training..."

-o-

Natsumi hummed happily to herself as she made her way toward the bathroom for her morning shower. Though she showered every night just before dinner, her morning shower was less about getting clean and more about getting herself fully woken up without the eye-widening rush that she got if she drank some of Chizura's coffee. The stuff was strong and using enchanted water in the mix likely didn't make things more palatable for Natsumi.

She carried along her clothes for the day, a hand-me-down outfit from Chizura that the witch had altered to fit the young woman's frame through some minor sorcery. Though the witch stood a foot taller and had a slightly plump build, the girl's butt and bosom meant that a similar amount of material was used.

Though the outfits were not something she'd consider fashionable, what with their bright colors and clashing patterns, they were rather comfortable. The material had been altered to take on the properties of spandex, making everything tightly hug and support her body. Today she wore one of Chizura's favorite color combinations, a mix of leopard print with the feel of velvet, combined with shiny, purple latex.

It was a mix of sensations, soft and fuzzy, and smooth and sleek. She could see why her tutor enjoyed the fabrics. She supposed that people expected a bit of eccentricity from a witch and her apprentice, and brightly colored, clashing clothes were more agreeable than bright green skin, warts, and a collection of toads.

Natsumi's eyes widened as Chizura appeared at the top of the stairs, heading for the bathroom as well, her skin indeed a bright green. Though on a second look, Natsumi saw that instead her teacher had just gotten a faceful of slime.

"Second Tuesday of the lunar month, should've remembered. The local water elemental gets rather moody if you use too much of the solid ingredients for a potion." Chizura explained, "A little hot water, soap, and some scrubbing takes it right off the skin. I won't be but ten minutes."

Natsumi blushed, "Um... it takes me a good twenty or thirty minutes to get fully washed up, ma'am." The water heater typically peaked at fifteen, slowly went from hot to warm until twenty five, and went quickly from warm to cold after that.

The witch gave her apprentice a playful glare, "What did I tell you about using that word?"

The girl blushed deeper, "S-sorry, Chizura!" she apologized.

"Don't call me ma'am, it makes me feel old. And you know what they say, you're only as young as you think you are, and I think I've been in my mid twenties for a good three hundred years."

Natsumi's eyes widened, she had suspected that the witch was older than she looked, but she hadn't been expecting her to be THAT old. Chizura did indeed look to be in her mid to late twenties.

"I've been meaning to give that lazy salamander in the hot water heater a piece of my mind. He spends far too much time napping, and a snoozing salamander means tepid water for everyone in the evening." She said, beginning to strip of her slime-spattered clothes.

"There's plenty of room in the shower, I think we can share." The witch said pleasantly, revealing more of her chocolate colored skin with each moment.

"Ma'am I... er... Chizura..." Natsumi stuttered, her blush growing even worse, trying to find the proper words for what she was trying to say.

The witch turned the shower on and took Natsumi's clothes from her grasp, placing them on the counter. With a quick motion she had the belt of the girl's bathrobe undone and her hands on Natsumi's shoulders, pushing her into the shower.

"Oh hush, it's not like either of us has anything that we haven't seen before." The witch said, attempting to silence Natsumi's protests.

The apprentice spun around, the words on the tip of her tongue, when she got a glimpse of her teacher in the full nude. She couldn't help but stare, Chizura had a stunning figure, too well-padded to be on the cover of any fashion magazines, but with her generous bust (which seemed to be somewhere on the borderline of too big to be natural, but not 'float-y' enough to be magically enhanced), exotic features, perfect skin, and deep purple hair, she was as gorgeous as Natsumi could expect anyone to be in real life.

"I... I..." she sputtered, her gaze moving up and down her teacher's body.

"Was wondering if the purple was my natural color? Well, it isn't, but neither is the green down there. I'm surprised that every hair I have isn't a completely different color than the others, all things considering."

Natsumi remained silent, letting Chizura scrub off the mess of the magical accident, doing her best to avoid accidentally doing what she would typically do to wake herself up every morning. As a result she'd washed her hair, gotten most of her body lathered up and rinsed, all that remained was...

"Oh what a putz I am!" Chizura said with a giggle, "Don't be ashamed about it, love, I've had knockers like yours before, for about a week before I managed to exorcise the air elemental from them, I know how sensitive they can be."

Natsumi nearly turned red from head to toe, her head lowered as she stared at the base of the tub, or tried to, since her massive breasts were in the way.

"Oh relax, don't be embarrassed! I should've figured that washing a pair of whoppers like these would be a bit more intense than usual, and a young woman would want her privacy while bathing. No wonder it takes you so long to wash up! You have all this..." Chizura absently ran her hands over the sides of Natsumi's breasts, moving up to the top, and then back down again.

"All this that you have to get scrubbed and clean, and I bet that the way it feels drives you to distraction every time you have a go at it."

Natsumi couldn't reply, she was panting, overwhelmed with sensation. Her own touches were typically lighter than Chizura's, the witch had sunk her fingers in a bit to the soft, spongy flesh.

"Maybe showers would go faster if I washed these for you?" the witch asked, lathering up her hands with a bar of nope, not waiting for Natsumi's answer, but the girl had nodded her head. Chizura grinned and focused the spray of the shower head straight down before lathering up Natsumi's plentiful breasts. The apprentice's knees seemed to turn to water as her teacher groped and fondled her in the guise of bathing.

The witch grinned and coaxed the girl downwards, having her sit in the tub. Natsumi's legs had nowhere to go but around her kneeling instructor's waist. She tried to hold it in, but it quickly became obvious that Chizura was more interested in teasing her student than actually getting her washed.

"Loosen up, Natsumi!" Chizura said with a giggle, splashing water up onto the girl to wash away the suds, "If it feels good and you want to make a noise, just let it out! My word, if you keep it bottled in all the time no wonder you're in here twice a day doing this! You can't let your emotion out in little drips and drabs, dear."

Chizura grinned and leaned down, running her tongue gently over Natsumi's breast, up to her neck, stopping just short of her lips.

"Especially your fire-elemental emotions; you keep your need and your lust bottled up, they're just going to get hotter and hotter, under more and more pressure until you can't hold them in anymore and they burst."

Natsumi did indeed feel like she was going to burst. She could feel her pussy throb, her nethers longing for contact with something, anything, as they slowly leaked the essence of her arousal.

"Don't be afraid; just do what your body tells you is right." Chizura purred, her lips mere inches from Natsumi's own.

The girl let out a soft, muted moan, turning her head away.

"Don't think about what other people have told you is right, don't worry about what other people would think if they found out. You're going to be a witch, dearie, it's a position of power and respect. You dictate your own terms on just about everything around here."

A purple lacquered fingertip gently coaxed Natsumi's gaze to meet her teacher's with the lightest of pressures upon her chin.

She clenched her eyes shut and pressed her lips against Chizura's, tightening her legs around her teacher's waist, pulling her sex against the smooth, water-slicked skin of the witch's tummy.

It was bliss, sheer, erotic bliss. It opened the floodgates within Natsumi, a deluge of trapped power rushing free from its prison. She felt the searing heat flow through her, blood flowing to the sensitive places in her body, making them swell and ache with need.

"You see, my girl, this is just a month's worth of power. If you're going to be a witch, to have to tend to all your body's needs, to keep everything in balance. You can't just stuff your feelings into a dark part of your soul and only let them out when they suit you."

Chizura ran her fingers through Natsumi's cotton candy hair, which had only recently grown long enough for the witch to be able to do so.

"If we'd let this continue, some day you'd be out walking in the mall and you'd notice that each step you took made all your tender bits rub against your clothes in an annoying, but pleasurable way. You'd keep walking, trying to ignore it, paying no attention to that trickle of moisture down your legs."

Chizura's lips moved downward, kissing Natsumi's neck, and then her breasts, alternating with each kiss.

"And then it wouldn't be a trickle anymore, but a torrent. You'd head for the bathroom, but just short of it you just couldn't walk anymore. You couldn't stand it, you'd tear your shirt open, let these beauties swing free. You'd claw open your pants, to start to rub and caress yourself. You'd call out to other shoppers, begging for them to help you scratch your not so little itch."

Natsumi had heard of incidents like that, heck, she'd actually seen a girl break down like that in the mall once.

"Now, just let it come. Let the fire surge through you. It will burn, but the burn will not be one of pain. Let go of your last hold upon it, let the fires have free reign over you."

The pink haired girl moaned loudly, giving voice to the pleasures within her, but she could still feel a pressure within herself, something that she was holding back.

"Come on, my girl, just let it go. Admit it to yourself."

Natsumi let out a loud cry, a wordless vocalization of the sweet pleasure and bitter frustration that coursed through her. She could feel herself on the very edge, needing just the slightest of nudges to get over, but she had something that tethered her, preventing her from that last fraction of an inch.

Chizura leaned forward and whispered something into Natsumi's ear. The girl's eyes widened and the tether snapped. She clung tightly to her mentor as her body tensed and quivered under the throes of climax.

The witch had been right; Natsumi did indeed find herself wanting to experience that terrible, embarrassing, humiliating, public breakdown. Not all of her wanted it, but there was a part of her that did.

"A talented witch has to face the truth, face reality. She cannot lie to herself. Denying the urges of your inner darkness is something we all must do, but denying that there is such a darkness in the first place will do far more harm than good." Chizura explained, shutting off the now tepid flow of water.

She stepped from the shower and offered her apprentice a hand to help her up.

"Now, let's put all that fire you have surging around inside yourself to work before it drifts off back into the ether..." she said with a grin.

-o-

"Okay, and I'll just need you to sit right here and concentrate. You're the power source here. You just need to keep the water and fire mana coming." Chizura explained.

Natsumi nodded and knelt within her portion of the circle. She'd helped her mentor with a few fusions before, taking a few magical items and electronic devices and uniting them into a single, functional unit.

At the very base most magics didn't mix very well. You could make a crystal ball for communication, or you could make one for long distance vision, scrying as it was called, but making a single ball with both functions essentially multiplied the effort, resources, and difficulty that it took to create. Since the Joining of the Worlds, union magics like this had become easy to do, the energies from combining two planets, possibly two entire universes, lingered allowing for rituals like this to take place. It was simple, one merely needed to have the capability of channeling the raw amount of power needed.

It wasn't particularly subtle; it was a brute force type of thing, but the more skill and refinement put into the task, the more effective the resulting device. A few percentage points of functionality or a more aesthetically pleasing end result. The processes could not be automated, and the individualized nature of each ritual casting made for varying results. It was easier for the companies to produce the parts, and allow after-market spellcasters to make a thriving business in putting them together.

In this case the items were an old laptop computer, several upgrades for a desktop computer, a piece of bubble wrap, a paper-sized sheet of transparent plastic, and a rolled up scroll.

The scroll was for shape, the computer parts for function, the clear sheet for substance, and the bubble wrap for texture, giving the 'keyboard' on the resulting incredibly light weight computer buttons that had tactile feedback, rather than mere flat runes upon the page.

Natsumi had done a few item merges before, but never something with an element so complex as a computer before. Thankfully she was just the power supply for the spell.

She merely closed her eyes and focused upon the fire within her. Fire was the driving element, the heat of the forge and smelter. Given great enough heat, anything would break down into its basest component form. But rather than physical heat, the power used by the ritual was sort of a mental heat; it took items down to the component ideas and mixed them together.

That was what the water mana was for. The only substance found naturally in the three classical states of matter, it allowed for an easy transition between states when applied in the same manner. It allowed them to flow, to mix, to merge, to be easily shaped by a powerful will.

While Natsumi had the focus to perform smaller and less complicated merges something like this was far beyond her ability. She had the brute force, but not the delicate touch required.

She could feel Chizura drawing upon her power, could feel the surging heat slowly flowing from her spirit and out into the circle, where it mixed with the other elemental magics Chizura called upon for the ritual.

But oddly when the heat had vanished completely from within Natsumi she felt it flowing back again, but dulled. The sensation was different, it wasn't the burn of a flame, but the insistent warmth of a fluid. Like a hot bath for the soul. She knew the feeling of this sort of power, the mix of manas used in the fusion ritual.

Something had gone wrong, the circle must've been drawn with a flaw, Natsumi was being used as a subject as well, not merely as the provider of power!

She opened her eyes and spun to meet the gaze of her teacher. Chizura grinned and winked at her. Natsumi looked down at the floor, the circles within the main circle were fake, the runes and designs within them blocking the flow of magic into them, rather than coax it inward. The only parts of the complex diagram that glowed where the main circle itself, and the two smaller circles that Natsumi and Chizura sat in. Natsumi's eyes widened, she recalled the sight of her teacher in the shower, the purple hair upon her head, and the green above her loins.

If Chizura was indeed three hundred years old, and had retained her youth for that long, had it been through merging with younger girls? Stealing their youth and vigor for herself.

Natsumi begin to stand, ready to break the circle, but Chizura spoke the last word, and the apprentice felt herself flow, her entire being turn to liquid and forced through a narrow pipe into some other place.

It was disorienting, her sense going completely blank for several moments before they returned. She felt dizzy, awkward, like she had too many limbs and no idea where each of them was supposed to go. She tried to take a step, but fell over, landing oddly. It felt like she was doing the splits, but painlessly and... sideways?

"Urgh," Chizura said, putting her hands to her head, "I thought I'd get it right with the dizziness this time." She muttered, "Ah well, maybe next time."

The witch's voice came from Natsumi's right, but she felt it, she felt the hands upon Chizura's temples also. She turned her head and found her vision going purple, her teacher's long locks tickling her face.

Natsumi shared a merged body with her mentor, two heads and necks upon a widened torso. Their clothes had merged, the patterns had been identical before, and they remained, perfectly formed for their fused flesh. The neckline had widened for their two necks, but ventured down a little lower than Natsumi was comfortable with, showing plentiful cleavage, which allowed her to see that Chizura's skin and her own were divided right down the middle. Her teacher's chocolate on the right, and her pale vanilla on the left.

She still had both her arms and both her legs, and oddly enough so did Chizura. Beneath Natsumi's left arms was another, identical left arm, though she could only move one of them, her right arm was in its proper place on the other side of their shared body.

Her legs on the other hand, felt all weird, it was like she had been folded sideways, her right leg placed immediately behind her left, which was exactly where it was. They had one pair of legs facing frontwards and one pair of legs facing backwards.

And it felt like Natsumi's already plentiful breasts had grown even larger, she could feel the weight of them on top of Chizura's and her own front legs. She tentatively moved a hand over one, and found that her breasts hadn't gotten bigger, Chizura's had, and they were now placed below her own, which were seated as the upper pair.

She wasn't quite sure how she knew which portions of their shared anatomy were 'hers,' as they all gave the same sensations, but she suspected it had something to do with instinctively knowing which bits of their merged anatomy she had no control over.

"Sorry for the scare, Natsumi." Chizura said, "But I don't think many people would agree to this as a teaching method."

"A teaching method?!" Natsumi said, stunned, "How does this help me learn anything?"

"Simple, you can feel what I'm doing, and though you can't control my half of our body, you can learn the motions and movements much easier when I do them. You'll also be able to experience the same sensations I do when I draw upon power, when I release that power, just about every step in the spellcasting process." She said happily. "I've been doing this for a good two and a half centuries now; trust me when I say it works a lot quicker than doing things the old fashioned way."

"Having teacher and student in two separate bodies isn't 'old fashioned!'" Natsumi shrieked, "It's the way things are supposed to be done!"

Chizura scoffed, "Just because something has always been done in a specific way doesn't mean that it always needs to be done in that way, or that it's the best way. Now, get your legs underneath you and stand up, we have to buy groceries."

Natsumi shook her head, "No way, I don't want to go out in public like this! And how do I know you're telling the truth about this being a teaching method; that you're not just leeching off my youth?"

The witch chuckled, "Is that what you think I'm doing? Stealing someone's life force, their youth as it were, requires me to siphon off energy from your soul. So I'd either be taking bites out of it, leaving you separate from me so I don't hurt myself, or merge the two of us entirely into one spirit.

"This is kind of a loophole for aging, the souls remain individual, but the physical form becomes one. You can only have one set of 'age' instructions on someone. Your biological clock keeps ticking on like normal, and while we're merged, mine rewinds until it eventually synchronizes with yours."

Natsumi was quiet for a few moments, "Then you've essentially discovered the secret of immortality. Why haven't I heard of this before in stories?"

"Are you sure you're reading the right stories, dear?" Chizura said with a chuckle, "I think the reason you haven't is because most magic users that wish to extend their lives beyond the normal limits are complete and utter selfish bastards. Before the Joining fusion magics were incredibly difficult and dangerous. Much easier to just put your soul into someone else's body."

"I didn't think this up to extend my life; I came up with this method so I could teach a particularly clumsy student of mine how to cast properly. The fact that I get a decade or two knocked off every time I take on an apprentice is just a bonus. Now, let's try standing, okay?"

Natsumi sighed and nodded, doing as her instructor said. It took a few tries, but she managed to get her feet beneath her.

"Why are our legs like that?" the apprentice asked.

"If we're going to part, I have to keep our combined mass about the same as that of two people. If we got rid of one pair of legs, I'd have to make us taller or heavier in some places in order to make up for it.

"If we keep everything just about the same size as it is as individuals, muscle memory remains the same, making it easier to adapt to the combined body. Plus it looks better. Four legs in a row makes us too wide to sit in just about everything, three legs means adding more space in the middle of the body, and I think that looks awkward with just two people. Having them face the same way is kind of problematic at first as the apprentice learns to walk; we end up with a lot of stepped on heels."

Chizura grinned, "Plus it feels kind of like a spider, all slinky and sexy."

Natsumi blushed, "Oh... oh my..."

The witch laughed, "Oh yes, dear, we're going to experience everything together. Including having to wash all four of these things."

"Oh gods..." Natsumi whispered, her skin flushing scarlet.

Chizura reached up, gently turning Natsumi's gaze to meet her own, "But I don't think that will be too much of a problem now, will it?"

Natsumi smiled a little, "No ma'... er... Chizura." She replied.

250 years and dozens of different designs later, Chizura always made sure of one thing in her fused form with her students; that their torso was just wide enough to allow the two of them to kiss.

It worked wonders on silencing protests and emboldening bashful students.

And it felt positively wonderful.