3: Careful Steps
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Jacob

I slowly came to and, wow, I’d never felt so good in my life. It didn’t hurt to just be… me, and on top of that, the general wrongness I was always feeling seemed to have completely vanished. I immediately tried sitting up and this shouldn’t have been so impressive but, wow, doing so without any pain was blowing my mind. I gave standing up a shot, and, yup, that also worked better than ever before. After the euphoria from doing these simple tasks finally subsided, I started looking around the room. There were shelves on the wall stacked with potion flasks and bookshelves full of what looked like tomes. Aside from that, there was a small kitchen area that looked normal enough with a small table. It felt kind of weird, seeing this contrast. To the right, there was this furniture right out of a fantasy book, but the left side looked like a kitchen fit for someone living on their own.

Shoved in front of the bookshelf was a mirror. It was clearly not meant to be a permanent fixture, judging by its haphazard placement. I stepped in front of it and took a good look at myself, for the first time in a while. I didn’t really know what I should have expected, but looking back at me was a kind of cat-human hybrid. Well, more human than cat, really. The thing that first stuck out to me was the fact that my hair wasn’t shaved almost all the way back anymore, an unusual sight for me at this point. It was still black as always, but a bit more shiny and longer, loose strands framing my face smiling back at me. And, weirdly less exciting, growing out of the top of my head was a pair of cat ears, just as black. My face looked decidedly fuller, less bony, and strangely enough more feminine, though I didn’t really mind that, if I was being honest. Nevertheless, I was still wondering where that came from. My green eyes were shining as always, although the… irises it was, I think? The irises were vertical slits instead of circles. My whole body looked way better-nourished in general, and more feminine for that matter. Under my hospital gown it was hard to see, but I could feel a lot more curves, and my small boobs did manage to stand out just a little bit.

My tail was very restricted by my clothes, unfortunately, having to hang low for the time being. From what I could tell, it was just as black as my hair. Thank you for your sacrifice, male black cat. May you rest in peace.

Overall, I can’t say this is what I expected, but it certainly beats dying at 19 years old and didn’t feel wrong in the slightest. It even was pretty cute, if I was being honest. All of a sudden, I could feel my ears twitch a little - they could do that? - and heard slight sobbing from behind the kitchen area.

 

I wandered around barefoot, trying to locate the source of this. As I wandered into another room, this one likely a living room of some kind, with none of the witchy aesthetic, I could see the witch cooped up on the couch, crying into her knees.

“Hiya,” I greeted her without any of the usual pain that came with talking. Going from first impressions, I certainly preferred this new, higher-pitched voice over my raspy, weak old one. I sounded calming, even to myself. “What’s up?”

She looked up at me, tears running down her face. I could see dried streaks all over her cheeks, indicating she’s been at this for a while.

“I… I completely…” She sobbed for a few seconds. “I completely fucked it up. Someone… they… they jumped into the spell and I messed everything up and…”

Suddenly, memories from before I blacked out came flooding back. Sam had rushed on top of me to protect me! But where was he now? With him back in my mind, I swear I could… smell him somewhere around here, as weird as that felt. I just… knew it was him.

 

I dashed back to where I woke up, following the scent, almost tripping over myself a few times. Sure enough, right behind where I woke up there was a small figure curled up on the ground, hopefully just sleeping or recovering. I was going to ignore the other possibility for now. And, sure enough, they smelled like Sam. I used to be around 6 feet tall, and Sam always towered over me at 6’2’’, even before I was chained to a bed. My height now seemed relatively unchanged, but Sam’s? I couldn’t tell for sure, but this person… he… couldn’t be taller than 5 feet. His hair seemed to have grown quite a bit, reaching far onto his back, and two brown mouse ears sat on top his head. I could see a long, brown tail sticking out of his back, but I didn’t dare peek further. Not now. Right now, a certain witch had some explaining to do.

 

I slowly walked back towards the living room, still seeing the cause of all this sitting there, crying. “You.” My voice lost all the gentleness it previously had. I instinctively bared my claws and fangs, unaware that this was even a thing I could do. “What did you do to my friend.”

Could a catgirl - I was surprised at how okay I was with that moniker - who just walked for the first time in like two years really take on a witch? I didn’t know, but I was ready to find out.

She looked up at me, her lips trembling. “I… I’m sorry. It’s… they, they added another target by jumping in the way. So, the spell picked another compatible animal for them. If I had to guess I’d have to say it was probably a mouse running around somewhere in the hospital. I… I’m so sorry.”

I took a step towards her, seeing her flinch in response. “Undo this now.”

“Normally I could, but… this spell affected two people. If I… If I undid this now, you’d be back in your old body, and your soul going back and the bodies separating again… a healthy person is likely to go away unharmed, but you? You’d likely die immediately.”

 

I swallowed. Did I really want to do this? Just die back in this hospital bed? Die as… a guy, a small part of me thought.

Who was I kidding, if it was for Sam, I’d gladly do this. “Then undo it. Now. I don’t care. If it’s for him, I… it’s about time I did something for him for once. I’ll happily give my life for his.” My green eyes glared down at her, hopefully being intimidating enough next to my bared fangs and claws. I could only hope the tears building up didn’t hurt my intimidation. I didn’t know if I even really had to do this, but I needed some outlet for all this pent-up anger and she was as good of a target as anyone else at the moment.

 

“Please don’t,” a high-pitched voice squeaked behind me.

 

Sam

As the spell exploded, I felt like I was being pulled apart. No… I was being pulled together? I felt myself stretch really wide, searching for… something. After an agonizing amount of time, I could finally find that something and it was also me? Or at least a part of me. Almost immediately, I recoiled back to my original shape, but I could feel myself shrinking even after I stopped being pushed back, my entire body shifting around.

 

When I came to after what felt like an eternity, I could immediately tell something was off. I could feel my whole body being different. I was curled into a ball, embracing nothing but thin air. What was I- oh yeah, Jacob. He was… being attacked? Where was he now? I felt like he was nearby… like I could smell his scent? I tried getting up, shakily standing on unfamiliar legs. As I did, my pants fell right off me, but my now-too-large shirt thankfully served to cover things up now.

Although, I would be lying if I said I actually noticed any of that in the moment. As soon as I regained my balance, I started running, going wherever Jacob’s scent led me.

 

As I got closer to the source of the smell, I could hear people talking. I decided to peek into the room, not making my presence known. I’ve definitely had enough bad luck with bursting into rooms head-first for a day.

Spying onto the scene, I could see two people talking. One of them was sitting on the couch and visibly distressed, but I couldn’t see too much from where I was standing. I decided to blame the loss of height.

The other person, though, was what my attention jumped to. The hospital gown was certainly familiar, so was their black hair, and the smell made it undeniably clear that this was Jacob. He looked different, with cat ears on his head and a fitting tail hanging under the gown, but it was him.

 

Part of me wanted to dash in and immediately see what’s going on, but I needed to get some context first. Jacob was visibly on edge, and that was almost enough for me to immediately run to his rescue, but I decided to keep myself out of this for the time being. They were talking about… me? And undoing this? But Jacob… he… he could walk, and he could finally speak without the pain that I could always hear in his voice… When Jacob said that he’d give his life for mine, I couldn’t just be a bystander anymore. This was everything he had ever wanted!

 

“Please don’t.” I tried to assert myself, to appear protective, but all that came out was a meek little squeak. So this was my voice? For a second I feared that I was so quiet they wouldn’t hear me, but after a few seconds both of them turned to stare at me. Jacob’s emerald eyes lit up with happiness and… concern? But why would he be concerned about me? He immediately ran towards me, embraced me, and picked me up, holding me tight. This truly made me realize the difference in our heights now, and a part of me wanted to freak out about this, but the embrace just… felt so good and calming, so I wrapped my now shorter arms around him to return the embrace. I haven’t been allowed to touch Jacob in about a year, the doctors said something about his immune system being weakened, so this was cathartic. I always had needed to keep my distance from him, and now I could actually feel him once again. We stayed like that for a good while before he carefully put me back down, my feet finally touching the ground again.

With the euphoria of seeing Jacob back on his feet subsiding, confusion about the situation finally had a chance to show itself for the first time since I’ve woken up. “So… what’s going on here?”

 

And so, the witch told me everything she told Jacob in the hospital room. About what she’s done, and how my interference messed up the spell. “Honestly, I was so scared that you might not make it. There was so much that could’ve gone wrong… you were an extra target for the spell, and I don’t even want to know where the animal you bonded with was. I’m really glad things turned out as well as they did.”

I sat on the other side of the witch, next to Jacob, and even when sitting the difference in height was clear. By this point, I’ve calmed down enough that, when looking down, the changes I went through became increasingly clear. I could feel curves that weren’t there before, I could feel my ears sitting on top of my head, my hair hanging down my back, a tail hanging down from under my shirt-turned-dress. It was kind of awkward, having to work around that extra limb of sorts when sitting down.

 

“Oh yeah, by the way, in the midst of this I think I completely forgot to introduce myself. So… hi you two, I’m Kara. I know you’re Jacob…” she glanced at my friend, “…but what about you?” She looked over at me.

“Uh, yeah, my name’s Sam.” I was slowly starting to get used to this new voice, even if it still sounded a little unusual - though not bad by any means. This was my voice, huh? I could probably get used to this. I never really liked my name, and saying it was my name when I was looking like this felt incredibly off. How ironic, I thought my name was the weird thing right now.

 

“Now that we’re all roughly on the same page, let’s talk about what to do from now on. Either I revert the spell, you go back to your old bodies, and Jacob is likely to… well… die from that…”

“Let’s do it.” – “No way.” Two conflicting answers rang throughout the room.

Jacob looked down at me, his eyes full of concern. “But… come on… I would’ve died anyway!”

I sighed. “No. It’s been so amazing to see you on your feet again, and I’m not making you give this up. We can figure something out, but I don’t want to do this without you.” I looked back up at him, trying to look as steadfast as possible, though the height difference made that difficult. I grasped his hands, feeling incredibly soft, yet stronger than they’ve ever been, and even here the difference in size was clear. “Trust me. I’ll make sure things work out.”

Jacob swallowed. “Alright.”

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