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THIEVING LITTLE WEASEL

“What do we do now?" she asked the Thief. He'd never get used to how his ear twitched to every noise. It was automatic, like the spring of a tumbler in a lock. The muscles in his head, down his neck, he felt them roll to twitch his little fur covered ear. She said they, his ears that is, were triangular but they looked a bit rounded to him when he had looked in the mirror earlier.

Perhaps the worst part about this whole situation was that he didn't have an answer. It'd taken him what felt like hours just to find his way out of the University, and then to find his way to the rendezvous point, where his Lady-Friend had been pacing back and forth.

It was supposed to be fairly simple, but they should've known that nothing was simple with magic involved. A rival university had lodged a contract with their guild to have them acquire some alchemical treatises from the office of a certain someone, here called Flamel. That wasn't his real name, of course, just like our furry little friend's real name wasn't Thief and his lady friend had more of a name than just 'Thief's Lady-Friend', but the story can't be given away that easily. The Thief wanted to avoid any official self-incrimination, even if there was a distinct lack of talking weasels in the ranks of his guild to dilute blame.

A lot of time had gone into preparation for this heist, though little of it was fruitful. The building plans of Flamel's institute were not exactly well-documented in the city's archives. The city library had little literature on the building of the place. Its grounds were exclusive to the students, and open tours were seldom given and tightly escorted. It was on one of these tours where the Thief first saw the courtyard he'd have to cross to get to the tower in which Flamel's office was situated. He and his Lady-Friend were posing as a noble couple inquiring for places to send their bright and magically talented young third son to study, and were granted audience with some peon in blue robes and a square hat which sat oddly about his head. It wasn't Flamel, so it didn't matter who it really was. He droned on and on in the most annoying voice, which sounded to the Thief like dry leaves being rasped across the cobble streets in autumn, but with none of the comfort of seasonal change.

The courtyard was airy and open, landscaped in the middle with a fountain, and hedged-in with columns and statues of stuffy looking bearded men that all looked the same, except for their increasingly ridiculous modes of dress the newer they were. Here a veranda wrapped around, and strange vividly-colored plants grew with purple-red leaves or with bright blue bell flowers, and ivy snaked up the columns where it could. At the far end, there was the entrance to the tower, whose peak was so high up that the Thief had to crane his neck to see it. He paused, and the tour guide kept going without them.

There, at the top, was the target. Flamel's office. The windows were wide, and the rooftop was steep like a needle, with an iron lightning rod crowning it. There was a small balcony, but it looked far too high up for a grappling hook to reach its rails from the roof of the mere two-story building below. To gain access from above, one of them would need to be a hawk, and neither the Thief nor his Lady-Friend could become hawks.

Later that week, it was time to enact the plan. The Thief and his Lady-Friend had worked up a map from their tour, and sourced the equipment they needed. The Thief was to sneak over the ivy-covered sidewall of the campus and then make his way across the courtyard they had seen. Since neither of them had any idea what was inside the tower, everything from there on was improvisation.

The Thief had acquired a shimmering magic cloak which was supposed to protect him from any wards that might be in place, and to let him pass without a trace. He had soft, rough-out leather-soled turnshoes that would make no noise on the marble flooring, and a pair of black linen breeches and a shirt that were soft and soundless. Of course, he had a smallsword by his side and knew how to use it, but it seldom came to that. It was a thing he'd won long ago in a duel, and was possibly the most expensive bit of his kit besides the cloak, but if one were to take sentimentality into play then it was easily ten times as valuable. For exfiltration, his Lady-Friend had arranged to meet him at a certain street corner, from where they could easily slip away into the surrounding city.

Entry to the campus was simple. Once inside, the Thief strained to hear anything that might give away some sort of security, but the campus was sleepy except for the buzzing night insects. Moths crowded the lights that were on in some places, like the lecture hall they'd seen on the tour, and in a few of the rooms of the villa-like structure, but nobody was moving about the grounds.

The Thief stole along the side of the courtyard, between the pillars and some of the rooms. The hair on the back of his neck was sensitive to any breeze, standing as it was. This was almost too easy, he later remembered thinking.

Hindsight being what it was, that was certainly the case. He made it to the base of the tower, and then managed to jimmy open a window latch with a thin probe and slip his way inside. The bottom floor of the tower looked to be a kind of foyer, where stairs wound up the far round wall and portraits of strange bespectacled men and tables of glass instruments. Judging by context of location, these were alchemists and alchemical setups, though none of it meant anything to the Thief. He carefully made his way across the room and up the stairs which spiraled ever upward and ever more narrow as they closed in on the top of the tower.

None of the inner rooms were locked and some of the rooms he passed through were strange. It seemed the living quarters were lower down, with what looked like a bedchamber and then a library making the first two floors above the ground floor. Then there was a room full of what looked like the actual instruments from the portraits below, decorated with tapestries of diagrams the Thief could not read. This room's ceiling was high and the stairs looped around it wholly once before they reached the next door, and at all levels of it were crossbeams of herbs and strange ingredients hung to dry. None of that mattered, however, for he was finally at the very top of the tower, and only one door stood between him and finishing this contract.

The Thief reached his hand for the door latch. He did not tremble, but his heart pounded in his chest. The door did not seem locked. Why would it, if the front door had been and none of the other inside doors were? It didn't even have provisioning for a lock from this side. He pressed on the latch, and it clicked open. He tentatively opened the door and probed inside. He could see no security, but was greeted by the sight of a truly magical study.

More books, older specialty books, were kept here on a shelf on the far wall from the door. Down from windows in the steepled roof fell moonlight, and celestial compasses and mechanical computers of brass discs were perched on stands in various parts of the room or stood on tables, gleaming pale in their moody lighting. Gems and crystals occupied tables and shelves, casting beams of refracted color-broken light like little tinted spotlights about the place. In the middle, luminescent, was a crystal ball wherein milky clouds churned.

By a lower window was a desk fringed with the stumps of candles that all melted together; this was where Flamel's notes were written. These were the primary target of the Thief, and he made his way over to them. They were sitting right there on the desk, probably left out so the ink would dry. He couldn't make sense of any of it. They were written in a cipher, or backwards, or both. These diagrams made no sense either. Still, it wasn't his job to interpret them, just to steal them, so he shoved them into his waistcoat and--

Suddenly, the shuffle of slippers on the floor broke the silence, and the room lit up with the cold blue light of a magic lantern. There was only time for a few heartbeats between that and when Flamel's voice boomed out.

“Ah, we have a thieving little weasel here to steal the eggs of my knowledge!"

The Thief spun around. There stood Flamel, in shabby robes, with his scraggly and thin beard and his receding hairline partially hidden by a faded checkered turban.

“Oh, no need to speak, my friend! In fact--" he made a pulling motion with his hand, and suddenly the Thief felt his tongue go numb. He tried to gasp but there was no sound. He grasped at his mouth but could feel nothing out of the ordinary besides his lips being unable to part no matter how hard he tried to wedge his fingers between them. Flamel stalked in a semicircle out of reach of him.

The wizard cackled. “Oh, already starting to rue this day? Do you now reckon how utterly and absolutely and royally-- and all those other qualifiers-- fucked you are? At the mercy of a wizard, caught red handed! Oh, and, let me just take those back." He snapped, and the papers that were just in the Thief's hand disappeared and reappeared in Flamel's. The Thief thought about running, he thought about jumping out the balcony, or doing any of those things, but he was frozen with fear, and the hope that, maybe, perhaps, hopefully, he could get out of this unscathed if he just stayed calm and didn't panic. But oh, how he was panicking.

“Ahem, now I've embarrassed you, what fitting punishment can I think of for an egg-sucking weasel like you?" He crossed one arm over his chest and stroked his wispy beard with his other gnarled, wrinkled hand. He was swimming in his faded, splotched, alternatively bleached and stained and patched raiment. “Weasels don't actually suck eggs, by the by. They can't actually suck. Don't have the cheeks and lips for it! I'm just telling you to save you the trouble of finding out yourself. Now, a-ha!"

He threw his hands up in the air and the Thief recoiled. Suddenly the Thief felt tugged off his feet, but instead of falling to the ground he was held in the air like an hors d'oeuvre suspended in aspic. What happened next was so sudden, even thinking back on it the Thief couldn't exactly place what happened first.

All at once his body lengthened and shrank, stretched and compacted, burning all over as if he was dipped in hot oil. He winced as his face was physically pressed and remolded like clay, while the wizard Flamel worked his thumbs into it from afar. At the same time, his clothes, his precious smallsword, his rope, his gear- it all shimmered and burned away from his body and turned to glowing, sparkling dust that whipped in the unseen current of magic. The only thing that survived this was his magic cloak, which proved to really be magical. It did not hide his nakedness, though, for how oversized it was, and how it billowed in the aforementioned magical wind. What did quickly hide his nudity, however, was the sudden bristling of thick brownish-blackish shiny, oily fur from his skin all over his body, from his newly pointed nose, over his animal ears, down his long neck and shoulders and twisting, tangled, elongated torso, down his stubby arms and haunches, down his whipping curling tail, and over his broad five-toed paws. The violent whirlwind twisted his new body around and he felt akin to a loose end of rope in high winds on the rigging of a ship.

Just as suddenly as this tornado of potent magic appeared, it vanished, and the Thief flumped to the floor in a heap. A moment later the magic cloak, which was all that was left of his kit, fluttered to the floor atop him. Just because he'd stopped spinning didn't mean the room had, and with the unfamiliar way his body moved he had no hope of disentangling himself from the cloak until Flamel so graciously lifted it off him.

“Ahah, magic! This is how you must've got in here without setting off any wards! Well, I might use this to steal lunches from the faculty dining hall." He threw it aside and hunched over to face what he'd made of the Thief.

“Now if I kill you, there'll be a lot less mess to clean up!"

He raised his hands again. The Thief's tiny heart was pounding so hard and so loud he could hear it. Every nerve in his new body was raw, every muscle felt weak, and he felt drunker and dizzier than even the time he tried to win a drinking contest with a halfling, but he doubled over on himself to turn and flee. Flamel laughed, but the Thief bounded away toward the door. First, he slammed headfirst into a table leg, but he didn't have time to process the pain. Almost blindly, he leapt for the door, but in turning the corner too tight he slammed his hips against the jamb. Then, he tumbled down the steps, each one like falling from a dining table.

Flamel's cackling did not grow more quiet, despite the distance. It filled the whole tower, which seemed to awaken into a nightmare. Hanging snakes, where on the way up herbs had placidly dangled from rafters and beams, lashed and hissed in vicious laughter. At the bottom of the study's flight, specimens suspended in jars of alcohol turned their heads to grin. On the first floor, the paintings of previous alchemists shook and pointed with wrathful mirth. The Thief ran for the door, but it slammed shut on him. Then he leapt for the window, which slammed shut as well.

He twirled and jumped and twirled, chittering like a beast. He was so consumed with panic that there wasn't a thought in his head, until his eyes fixed on the single spot of moonlight coming in from outside; the door was not in the best condition and it had just a piece of a corner board missing. It was narrow, as narrow as could be, but the Thief dove for it and clawed at it and chewed and thrashed. His head slid through the jagged gap he'd gnawed, and he pushed so hard that even though his ears just caught it hurt like he was scraping them and his cheeks along rough stone. Then he slithered and twisted, and his shoulders came through, and his long, long torso followed, and his hips caught and had to be dragged through as well, but he was free! Free from that laughing madhouse, free to run down the courtyard, free to flee back to the ivy-grown wall and climb up and over it, free to disappear into the streets and meet his Lady-Friend at the rendezvous point.

He ran until he was out of breath, but nothing looked the same. The buildings towered, and their tile roofs seemed higher than the mountains. Every person was a towering giant, whose shadows cast from moth-circus street lamps, or from doorways, blanketed swathes of street like the shadows of overhead clouds. He stopped finally by a set of four stone steps near an alley, and rose up on his hind legs and let himself fall backwards against it. He panted and he panted and he panted for what felt like an hour, listening to his own breath and to insects buzzing through the night sky and bats swooping to catch them, before he dared to open his eyes and look down at himself.

Fur, it was all fur. His feet were so far away from his snout, which he could see if he crossed his eyes. His whiskers swayed in the slightest breeze, and even from his own breath. He went to feel them, but his paws were big and nearly the size of his whole face and he got distracted trying to flex them and test just how little dexterity he had retained.

He could spread them, and his sharp claws would flex further out of the fur-obscured digits than they naturally sat. Other than that, though, he felt sort of like he was wearing thick mittens, and couldn't close his hands. The tendons, the muscles, they just weren't there for such an action. No matter how much his mind tried, he could not tighten a muscle that was not there.

Instead, he had some very new muscles to tighten, such as the ones that governed his new tail and larger, more articulated ears. He was truly some kind of animal, some kind of grotesquely long fur-snake, some kind of living scarf. He didn't know what he was. He didn't even know if he could talk, and he worked his narrow tongue and odd snout to try and form words. At first they were just growls, whines, hisses, but with work he managed to eek out a strangled word. He just had to concentrate. He just had to--

Suddenly, there was a hiss next to him. He froze, and turned to stare at the eyeshine of a beast as big as he was coming from the alley, clicking and chittering, with murder in its eyes.

##

“So," the Thief's Lady-Friend interjected, “That's when you started screaming for me and bounding through the streets being chased by alley cats?"

“They're a lot more terrifying when you're about the same size of one! That's like facing down a vicious wolf!" the Thief squeaked from the end table he was laying on, with his tail and hind paws dangling off the back..

“Sure. But recounting that all still hasn't helped us decide what to do next."

The Thief snorted and turned his head away. He thought retracing his steps could help, like he'd find a detail he missed. Perhaps, somehow, they could try and steal back in? Find a spell to reverse it? They couldn't just abandon the contract either. He'd given up too much for it! His manliness, his humanity, his smallsword! He needed to get those alchemical notes! Still, the very thought of going back made him feel sick and made his fur stand all on end. He wrinkled his nose and folded his oversized paws underneath his chest. What if he could never duel again? What if he could never steal again? He was just some little animal now, some terrible musty little thing that he didn't even know the name of and had never seen before. What was he even going to do with his Lady-Friend now? He didn't want her pity, he wanted to be her partner!

“What are you doing?" he rasped as her hand, which was as big as his head, came down and smoothed his fur. Then she dug her nails into the fur on the back of his neck and scratched, and did so all the way down his neck to between his shoulders. The feeling was so good it made him arc his long neck and back into it.

“Ough," he gasped. “That's not... It's not... Not fair! I'm trying to brood!"

“You're too cute. It's impossible," she said, and continued to scratch him. “Your fur is so soft it's ludicrous. How is this a curse, anyway?"

“H-hey!"

“I know, I know. But, well, at least you ended up something cute and not something like a flabby toad."

“Small mercies." He shivered, and it rippled all the way down his body. He felt a mile long. “I'd still be a handsome flabby toad, right?"

“To other flabby toads," she said as she laughed.

The Thief rolled his upper body partway on its side, tearing himself away from those wonderful scratches to put his broad paw on his Lady-Friend's hand.

“I want to ask you something serious," he said. She was still smiling, but she nodded anyway. He continued, “I... I'm scared of the future. That's not a question but..."

Her smile sublimated away like snow; that is to say, its departure was slow and almost imperceptible until it was gone. “You've never said that before."

“I know." He looked away and closed his eyes. Just being alone with

himself was so... So new, so clumsy feeling, so foreign. He was hyper-aware that everything about how his body laid was wrong and he could feel it all the time. “Look at me! How could I be a thief like this?"

She leaned down so she was closer to eye level with him. “You're still you, aren't you? You've got your skills, your knowledge, don't you?"

He held his fore paw and spread it and extended his claws. “I can't pick a lock with these."

“No," she said. She grasped his outstretched paw. “But you're small. You're sleek. You can get in and out of places like nobody's business. And who would even suspect an animal?"

The Thief's nose wrinkled but he couldn't deny that. He hadn't considered it, but, this was still all so new. It was just too bad his mood was so sour, even the potential here couldn't sweeten it right away.

“I suppose you're right," he said. “I could be your trained little pet, like a crow or a magpie."

“Now, now." She squeezed his paw. “First of all; you and I both know you're too stubborn to be trained."

He cracked a smile at that.

“And secondly, even if you want to be my pet, we're still equal partners when it comes to thievery."

His eyes popped open wide and he stared, speechless for a moment. She pressed her thumb to the tiny pad of his nose and laughed.

“Oh my god you're so cute!"

“Shush!" That snapped him out of it. He rubbed his nose with the back of his paw. “I just... You're just saying that."

“I'll pull your tail if you insinuate that I'm a liar again."

##

That night the Thief slept curled up on his Lady-Friend's chest, nestled up under her chin. He'd slept with her before, sure, but this was so different. Compared to his new body, she was like a giant. He could feel her breathing heave him up and down, and the gusts from her exhalation gently rustled his fur. She was warm and smelled good and made him feel safe, despite everything.

He nodded off before he even noticed.

Such innocent bliss was not to last, however.

The next morning he awoke bent backwards in half, suspended from fabric. His Lady-Friend was saying something to him, and he twisted to right himself. His fore paws met her chin and he slid down a little and instinctively the claws of his hind paws dug into the soft surface he was pressed against. This didn't make things easier and his Lady-Friend hissed. The Thief panicked and looked around, but he was being held against her. He'd somehow found his way between her chemise and her chest, his torso stretched between her breasts and his upper body just under her chin, with his face against hers and his hindlegs on her stomach. She had sat up as soon as she woke up, and he, limp and unconscious, folded over and didn't blink awake until she started talking.

Now she grasped him about the scruff between his shoulders. Immediately he went limp, and she dragged him out of her chemise and tossed him onto the bed beside her, where he landed on all fours with his back arched up and his brush flagging behind him. He blinked up at her, finally gaining enough of his wits to understand what she was saying.

“Ouch! Slithering between my tits in my sleep is one thing, but clawing me up too? Rude!"

His posture slipped and he bashfully bowed his head. She frowned, then she tossed the blanket corner over him. He gasped and skittered and wriggled his way out, and by the time he stuck his wedge shaped head out and twisted it around to see where she'd went, she was already up and at her vanity, applying some water to where his claws had dug in. There was only a little blood, so the annoyance outweighed the pain.

“Just for that, I don't even know if I should bring you to the market with me," she threatened.

The Thief perked one of his little triangle ears. “Rhrhmm--" he cleared his throat a second. “Market?"

“Yes. I need to buy some things. You do want to eat, don't you?"

The local market. It was where he first learned to ply his trade. Not this specific one, mind, but any town market was as good as any other. The stalls with bright, hefty fruit and fresh fish and bread and, in the autumn, jams and honeys and wines and mead. It was wonderful. And yet, a feeling of dread welled up.

The Thief rode on his Lady-Friend's shoulders like some kind of familiar, or some kind of trained pet, while she did her shopping. Most people paid no mind, and the shopkeepers that noticed gave a gleeful little chortle of surprise. Some even went to pet him, and far from hissing, the Thief merely let them. It felt good, much as he hated to admit it. It was just the way their large fingers brushed through his dense fur, and the pressure too, that somehow made it better than scratching an itch.

Still, he was dissatisfied, and if it were not for the sharper sounds and headier smells he'd be downright bored. Unfortunately, that boredom was replaced with stress. Every peddler's call, every distressed chicken cluck, every fly's buzz, every hiss to shoo a bee from fruit, every instance of overly rambunctious laughter, every slam of a tanker on a table, every goat bleat, and every pig squeal blended together into a cacophonic melody that slowly drove his claws deeper into his Lady-Friend's outfit until all at once she said “Ouch!"

She peeled him off her shoulder with both hands while balancing the basket's handle in the crook of her elbow. “What's the big idea here?" But as soon as she said it, she could see how his ears were pinned and his eyes were big and his little wedge shaped snout was wrinkled. It didn't take some kind of druidic lore to know he was distressed.

She tucked him into the crook of her arm and took him aside to a calmer alleyway, where sunlight flitted down through hanging laundry between small apartments above street level.

After a few moments of petting, when the anxiety ebbed away and he lay snaked in her arms and over her shoulder much like an entirely too long baby or a very limp baguette, she leaned her head down so her jawline nestled in the fur of his neck.

“You could've told me you were getting anxious," his Lady-Friend told him.

“Rrreh, I... I didn't know until it happened." He turned his small head away from her, even though she could not really see him.

“We can go home now if you like. I've got everything."

“Alright," he sighed, still slumped. It was obvious that he was quite thoroughly defeated, dejected. His heart was heavy, and every little rushed beat drew a pang of dread. He couldn't even handle the stimulation of a market. He lost his handsome human body, and worse, he couldn't even play it cool as a fashionable shoulder accessory when there was too much noise. What real hope was there, now? Even alley cats could get one over on him. How far the noble could fall.

“Hey," his Lady-Friend suddenly interjected, “I have an idea."

His ear perked against her jawline and she laughed.

“I know you're upset. I mean. How much worse could a score really go, right? But what if you were to, say, try and find the upsides of your sleek new body?"

He pushed himself off her shoulders and twisted his long serpentine neck around to look at her. His head was tilted, puzzled, but his ear was perked, showing his piqued interest.

The next words she said were critical. “Think of all the places you could sneak into like that; all small and sleek and unassuming. You can climb like nobody's business. You might even be too light to set off traps."

It was certainly a thought worth considering. He was a born thief, it was his lifelong trade. The prospect of losing his ability to do that has been rattling around in his head since the incident with the wizard, and it was the most disheartening part of the whole change, but now...

“What do you propose?"

Her face lit with mirth. “Well..."

##

His Lady-Friend had tied a little bag around his neck and sent him skittering up a vine-laced wall into the fenced townhouse of a well-to-do merchant. This wasn't a guild job, it was just a little hustle on the side, but it was just the kind of thing the Thief needed to get his feet, uh, paws back under him. It was simple as could be, with no real predicted payoff, but it was low risk as well. Still, the Thief's sable fur bristled, and his tiny heart pounded in his ears. She'd be waiting outside. He had to do this all on his own.

It was early in the morning, before the first rays of light shined over the hilltops, and there was only one light on in the house and no smoke from the chimney. Even though he was bigger than them, it still felt odd to the Thief how the sparrows were watching him closely as he slithered across the top of the wall, and chirped amongst themselves about his poor form. It made sense that they'd judge him harshly, though; he was exactly the kind of creature that'd be after their eggs. Oh, eggs did sound delightful...

He hopped down and landed on all four paws and bounded along to the windows. He couldn't get any purchase against them: they were too heavy, and he couldn't get his nose or claws inside. He sat there on the stone cobbles that made up a back porch, flustered and huffing. He could just give up here, give up and turn back. Thieving was hard without thumbs. Maybe he should just turn to stealing eggs and pouncing mice, like the one that just poked its head up over the terracotta gutter, eeped at the sight of him, and scurried away. The real curse here wasn't losing his body, he thought, it was that he kept his mind.

It was then that his eyes wandered over the back door's handles.

It couldn't be that easy, could it? Surely they were locked. The lites of the door were dark and textured roughly, set in grids of eight on either of the double doors, and the brass handles lay horizontal instead of as knobs. He wouldn't need thumbs to actuate them, if they weren't locked, which they surely were. It was never that easy. He got up and turned away. What a cruel joke!

Oh, but then he thought of his Lady-Friend's face if he returned empty handed. Empty pawed, as it were. Ought he not try it, even just to disprove the idea?

It was easy to sink his claws into the painted lumber of the door and pull himself up. It came as naturally as breathing. As he hooked one paw around the handle, he pulled and it did not give. Locked, he thought. Yet, just as he was about to give up, the handle gave. It slipped out of his paw and clacked back into its resting position, but it was indeed not locked.

He tried again, pulling it until he heard it give. The door didn't swing open on its own, though. He had to push the door from its counterpart with his hind leg while hanging onto both, and then let go and flumph to the floor. It was open. He could get in.

As the shade of the house enveloped him, the morning birdsong and the judgemental warning twittering of the sparrows fell away, and it was just silence. It smelled dusty, and like something had been burnt on the hearth a night or two ago. It stank of burnt candle wax, and of spices and spilled wine all around. It wasn't like the smell of his Lady-Friend's hideout at all. Oh well. He was in, now. He just needed to find something to steal to make it worth it!

After his pupils constricted, he could see that there were shelves that lined the place decorated with pale ceramics from some other land, delicately painted with floral motifs. There was a hearth with pots and pokers, above which was mounted a curved sword and the branched horns of some beast. Here in this living area, there were two plush but worn and sweaty-smelling chairs, and several tables with little oil lamps on them, and a bookcase that wasn't too full. That just left the stairs to the upper level, which he had to hop up from step to step, as his short limbs could not stride up them.

On the landing where the stairs turned a sharp corner, there was a tiny table with a small vase on it, which was no doubt somewhat valuable but he could not carry it out. There had to be something here worth all this trouble! He bounded up the last few steps, to the second floor of the house where the roof sloped down. He could see light filtering around the closed door of what must have been the bedroom. Here, though, was a study... And on the desk of this study, a glint beckoned the Thief closer.

He pulled himself up onto the desk, and found a smattering of gems as well as a freshly updated ledger. Someone must've been burning the midnight oil that morning. Too bad for them it was all for naught; the Thief scooped what gems he could into the bag around his neck and started back down.

Success!

Oh, he couldn't believe it! He was still a thief! He could still steal! He was beside himself, literally jumping with joy! The inkwell rattled as he twirled his long, long body around and he wriggled and twisted, until--

Oh, something wet! He pulled back, and just barely glimpsed his pawprint left on the ledger before his tail smacked the oil lamp over.

It shattered on the floor, leaving a puddle of oil and shards of ceramic. A voice said “Huh?" from the other room and the light underneath the door moved and flickered.

He was this close and was messing it up. It was time to leave, now! He leapt off the table just as the door handle turned, and he saw light cast his shadow before him as it flooded the rest of the stairway down.

“What the--" the merchant gasped, and the shock made the Thief launch himself down the last few steps to the flight below. He slammed into the tiny table, launching the vase from it. The sound of it shattering was nothing compared to the sound of the half-asleep comparative giant stomping down the steps just on his tail.

The Thief's paws lost purchase at this speed on the wood of the ground floor, but luckily for him the merchant's socks did the same and the man's feet slipped out from under him just before his hand closed around the Thief's tail. Seeking refuge, the Thief leapt up the plaster wall to the shelf full of fine porcelain and shoved himself between it and the wall. He watch as the merchant righted himself and then tugged the sword off the mantle. The man turned and thrust the sword point between two dishes, and the Thief hissed in panic and bound across the shelf. His paws scrabbled on the dishes and they flew from the shelf to the floor, and a swipe from the merchant's sword decapitated several small vases and scattered a shower of ceramic shards across the living room.

The open door was right in front of the Thief, and beyond that, the yard and the wall and freedom. He bounded as fast and hard as he could, every lithe muscle in his body coiling and springing, until his paws felt grass. Then he flung himself up the wall, grabbing onto the vines and shimmying straight up until he rested atop it, panting, looking over the street where his Lady-Friend was sitting in wait. The escape was so dramatic it even shut up the sparrows.

I did it, he thought. Then the realization hit him like a brick. “I did it!" he shouted down to his Lady-Friend.

“You can talk?!" the flabbergasted merchant gawked.

“Eep!" the Thief said, and leapt down from the wall to make his final escape.

##

“What do we do now?" she asked the Thief. He'd never get used to how his ear twitched to every noise. It was automatic, like the spring of a tumbler in a lock. The muscles in his head, down his neck, he felt them roll to twitch his little fur covered ear. She said they, his ears that is, were triangular but they looked a bit rounded to him when he had looked in the mirror earlier.

The best part about the situation was that he didn't have an answer. The thrill of having pulled off a heist, even such a small one, still drove his tail to flick. The jewels he'd nabbed weren't big, or especially rare, but they were worth something. No one was going to believe the merchant, especially given how sleep-deprived he was, when he said a large talking weasel trashed his place, stole his jewels, and left a pawprint calling card. It was far more likely he pocketed or simply lost the jewels, or any number of things that'd discredit his person.

Now there was only the question of how to celebrate. Could he even still drink alcohol? Human food hadn't been upsetting his stomach, so had his diet changed that much? There were still so many questions, and it wasn't like he could simply ask the wizard who did this to him, Flamel.

“I don't know, darling," he said. He was laid out on the table in front of her, where she'd been looking at the jewels in the light of a candle lantern. “I'm just happy I could do it at all."

“It was easy to tell how worried you've been."

“Honestly... And it's not very thiefly to admit, but I was quite afraid. Afraid I'd lost my trade, my passion, my mind.... Afraid I'd lose you."

She met his dark glossy eyes. “You're always a thief to me. I mean, look at you, stealing my heart even right now."

The Thief looked away. His ears and cheeks felt burning hot all of the sudden.

“I have an idea for how we could celebrate," she said. Before he could ask what, she grasped his short arms and legs and rolled him onto his back. He watched her eyes wander down the dark fur of his long, long belly, to fix on a spot between his haunches.

Oh, he thought his ears and cheeks burned before...

“We should celebrate just like we used to before you changed."

He had to admit, he wasn't even sure what he had down there, but judging by her expression, she wasn't dreading finding out. He knew he was still male, of course. He'd had to take care of nature's call since the university job, after all. It's just that he hadn't had it in him to explore himself that way. Her fingers teasing along his sheath was the first purposeful stimulation he'd felt.

Behind his dark brown fur was a pink, twiggy thing. It was rigid even though it wasn't hard. Well, as far as he knew. It didn't feel erect, at least.

Did he mention how big she was?

Precisely, how she loomed over him like a giantess? Well, she did, and that certainly helped make him pliable. The pink thing slid out from its sheath, though mostly from hitherto unused muscle action rather than from any engorging force.

That is to say, blood was rushing there. He writhed in her grip, but she held him steady. His tiny heart pounded in his ears.

“This is pretty cute," she said, and cupped his sooty-furred sac, making his body curl to the side.

“Good gods!" he gasped. She paused and her grip lightened.

“I can stop if you want," she said. She really would have, too. Part of him thought about it. He was still unsure of things, unsure of his body, of what she'd even find to do with him like this. It wasn't like he could lay her over silk sheets like a man should lay a lady the way he was now.

But...

“I, uh, no. Let's keep going."

“Alright, but only if you're sure."

“I'm sure."

She grasped her hand around his bestial cock. It filled it a bit better than he thought. He had a sort of fleshy end, and now with his blood doing its job, it was less like a bony twig. It was still proportionally longer and thinner than his previous equipment... But what mattered is that she didn't seem to mind.

She gave it an experimental stroke or two, and clear fluid beaded from the slit on its tip. She smirked and leaned over.

“You know what else we need to practice?" she asked. Her breath washed over him, and her long hair fell around him like a curtain as she loomed above him.

“What?" he asked. His beady animal eyes were about glazed over in pleasure.

She answered him by pressing her face to his snout and tilting her head to the side. His whiskers heralded the arrival of her lips, and he almost shied away, but bravery in that moment was to endure the kisses of his giant-to-him Lady-Friend. Oh, and endure he did, with his tongue flitting against hers briefly.

She wrapped him in her arms and scooped his long body off the table to take him to the bed. She spun and laid back on it so he was atop her, and shimmied her tunic up and her chausses down. He gazed over her glistening sex, nestled in trimmed dark hair, familiar but for its relative size to him. Inadequacy gnawed, but her scent beckoned him to her.

“Take me like a man, if you can," she said, and he answered her call. He slithered up her body. Her soft skin met the pads of his paws. His claws pricked her belly. Laid out against her like this, though he was narrow, his body stretched with his pelvis below hers, to his paws at her breasts and his whiskers tickling her chin and his brush tickling her thighs. Though his paws were small and not too dexterous, they could press her nipples and grab shallowly, and his arms could squeeze her some. He hoped she'd like his cock like this.

He arced his back up and angled his hips, and his short hind legs rested on her hips as he fished for an angle to slide in.

After a quick hump or two his prick found purchase between the lips of her labia and he pushed in. It was not as loose a fit as he feared, though it was also far from tight.

None of that mattered, though. She was slick and hot inside, and he'd been... Oh, how long had it been? It'd been a day or two even before he'd been cursed.

He chittered his teeth as he arced and drove his hips in. His Lady-Friend shuddered a bit. At least it was doing something for her.

Drawing his back up to hump like that had pulled his chest and head down her body, but that just meant he was in the perfect place to give attention to her heaving breasts. He turned and twisted his neck to get his maw around her nipple, and his whiskers elicited a heady moan from her. Her hand took to keeping the other nipple from getting jealous while he nibbled and suckled this one, and his forelegs wrapped around it.

Suddenly a sensation wracked his body and rippled his fur. He involuntarily bit down on her breast and drove in as hard as his legs could. This elicited a hushed hiss from his Lady-Friend. His claws dug into her soft skin on both his hind- and forelegs. He hilted, his prick spasmed, she shivered, and he came for the first time as a beast.

Afterwards, the Thief laid half-curled in the bed, bashful and sleepy, while his Lady-Friend dabbed fresh scratches and tooth-marks with a clean cloth.

“Sorry," he said for the fifteenth time since he regained his wits.

“Again, I liked it. Just not so hard next time."

“Well... At least you came too."

“It surprised me as much as you. I was getting ready to have to finish myself off until you gave me a fashionable nipple piercing."

“I'm never going to get used to this curse..."

“I hope not. Something so fun isn't something to let become mundane." She paused a moment, and then looked over her shoulder. “You know, I have an idea for how to show that wizard, Flamel, our thanks..."