In the end, I could not figure out where I picked it so, I just gave up and decided to deal with the fox plushie in the morning. Jumped off the sofa, and used my paw to click the foot switch of the standing lamp. After a big yawn, I made my way upstairs jumped up on my bed wiggled under the blanket and went to sleep.

 

“Eris!”

The next morning, after way too little amount of sleep I was woken up by Silver shouting my name as she stomped around the house.

Soo noisy… I thought as I poked my head out from under the cover.

“Eris!” She shouted again, sounding more frantic this time. “Where are you?”

What do you mean “where are you”... I'm clearly in bed. I grumbled to myself as I crawled out from under the covers and hopped off the bed to make my way downstairs, only to bump into Silver in her human form on her way up the stairs, just frozen looking at me with wide eyes.

 

I tilted my head in confusion, she seemed way taller than she should have been.

 

“Eris?”

 

“Morning.” I Yipped.

“Morning she says…”

“What happened?” I asked.

She didn’t answer. Just slowly walked up the stairs, picked me up and turned me so I could look into the bathroom mirror where I saw a flooffy black fox with a shiny coat of fur that seemed to sparkle almost like the starry night sky and its emerald green eyes full of life.

 

Wait, why is there a fox in the bathroom mirror?

 

“That is the question I want an answer to as well.”

 

That just made me frown and I looked back at the mirror. After a few seconds, my eyes widened as the gears finally clicked into place. As I looked down, I saw paws dangling in the air, and a flooffy black tail wagging up a storm. As it turns out, the fox is me, but…

 

Why am I a fox?!

 

“Why are you a fox?!”

 

I don’t know!

 

“Who did you piss off?!” She almost shouted as she turned me to look at her.

 

No one!

 

“That’s clearly not the case!” she said more and more worry seeping into her tone.

 

It's okay. Worst case, we can call Mother or Grandfather.

 

“Eris, what happened to you?” She asked, and I could see tears beginning to well up in the corner of her eyes.

I gave her chin a lick, and said, I don't know, but we will figure it out.

 

She just sighed and hugged me to her chest then turned to go downstairs. We ended up on the sofa, just sitting there with me curled up on Silver’s lap as she was patting the soft fur on my back

 

You have no idea how nice this feels.

 

She sighed, “I'm glad you like it, but let’s try and figure out what kind of cursed item you managed to put your paws on.” She said as she picked me up, moved me over to the sofa and stood up. “Where did you put it?”

It’s in the cabinet to the right, the clear box.

 

She walked over the the cabinet and rummaged through the stuff I picked up last night. She didn't say a word for the next few minutes, but eventually just sighed again, and closed the cabinet.

 

Nothing?

 

“None of them are cursed, or enchanted in any way. What else did you grab from the museum?”

 

Nothing, it was just that.

 

“Well, looks like you really are The Silver Fox now.”

Ha ha very funny. If I'm not careful someone might mistake me for a plushie… as soon as I said that, something that I have been missing just clicked into place and I bolted upright. The plushie!

 

“Plushie? What plushie?” Silver asked confusion apparent on her face.

 

It's a small fox plushie key chain thing the thing looks just like me. A girl I talked to online sent it to me, it's supposed to be enchanted!

 

“And why in Helheim are you asking random people on the internet to send you potentially cursed items!?”

I was curious! I said, then I set down on my hunches with my ears drooping. And I kind of wanted to know what it’s like to be a fox.

 

Silver sighed as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Well, you got your wish. Did she tell you if there is a way to undo the transformation?”

 

I need the plushie for that, I need to touch it and say the magic word. So we need to find it.

 

As soon as I said that Silver’s fair complexion bleached to a ghostly shade of white.

 

What? I asked, and then it dawned on me. When she brought me downstairs it was already tidied up from last night. Please tell me you didn’t do what I think you did.

 

Silver didn't answer, just bolted for the door. I hopped off the sofa and followed, just in time to see her throw the bin’s lid open, look up and down the road, then transform into her bird form, and take off straight, up in the air.

 

Oh no, this is not good. I need to speak to Kid Chaos, like right now.

 

As it turns out, using a phone as a fox is not really possible. By the time I unlocked it Silver just landed by the door turned back into her human form, and closed it.

 

“Eris, it’s gone.” She said in a depressed and distressed tone. “I tried a scrying spell, but nothing. The spell just fizzled.”

 

Unlock my phone and open Discord. In the messages look for “Kid Chaos”.

 

“Kid Chaos? Seriously? You know what, I don't care… okay, got it. What do I say?”

 

I don’t know, just give her the TL;DR and ask her what we can do.

 

“Okay,” she said then typed out the message. “Sent. and what n-” Before she could finish the phone pinged.

Kid Chaos:

Hello Svipul,
Oh, that’s not good.
Scrying didn't work because I protected them against that, so nobody could interfere with them. However when you use a plushie for the first time it kind of bonds to the user? So nobody else can use it, and so the user can't use any other plushie. That bond means users with access to magic could probably scry for their own plushie, cos they're bonded.

 

“Eris, do you know a scrying spell?”

 

Yes, but I’m really bad at it. So Im… I can try it, but I have no idea if it will work.

 

“Just try it. Please.”

Do you have a crystal ball or a silvered mirror?

 

Silver just waved her hand and a small pearly white crystal ball appeared on the coffee table. Seeing that, I jumped up and put a paw on it in an attempt to cast the spell, then tried again. In the end, all we got was a sheen of my magic’s light show washing over that ball.

 

“Oh no.” Silver said, sounding more and more stressed.

 

I'm gonna try it one more time.

 

And try I did. But the results didn't change. So Silver sent a new message. Then put the phone on the table so I could see it too

 

Eris, Second Daughter of Loki:

Scrying didn't work, Eris is trying again right now, but she is not good at it.
Same again.

 

Kid Chaos:

I see.

Give me 5 minutes and I’ll try to find it myself.

 

Eris, Second Daughter of Loki:

Okay, thank you.

 

And now we wait. I said after reading the latest message, then looked at the time, and saw that it was well past 11 am. Well, I guess, I'm not going to Uni today… Are you hungry? I know I could eat a little.

 

“Fine, since we can't really do anything more it seems. I’m gonna warm up some of the rice and stew we still have.” She sighed, and as she made her way to the kitchen, I could clearly hear her saying to herself, “I swear, when I turn back, I'm gonna have a lot of missing feathers…”

The next few minutes we spent in silence while I ate and Silver was sipping on her generously filled glass of red wine. She also grabbed me a small bowl of water so I could wash down the food. And just about when I finished the phone pinged again.

 

Kid Chaos:

Okay, I found it.

That garbage truck did a number on the poor thing, but I fixed her up for you.

As that message came through, in a swirl of golden light, the little fox plushie appeared on the coffee table within a paw’s reach from me, looking and smelling brand new and not like something that took a joy ride in the belly of a bin lorry. Followed by another ping from my phone.

 

Kid Chaos:

Please take better care of her this time.

 

I immediately picked it up, jumped off the table and thought “Fomx!” at it.

 

I just set there, waiting for it to do something, when Silver suddenly shot up, and pulled me into a tight hug. That was enough to jolt my brain, and I realised that I was humanoid again.

 

“It’s okay,” I whispered as I returned the hug “It’s okay. Everything is fine now.” I repeated as I rubbed small circles on her back.

“I'm sorry.” She cried, “I’m sooo sorry!”

“It’s okay, it's all fine now. Better than fine actually, I feel amazing!”

 

“I thought you were trapped like that because-” she choked back a sob. “Because I accidentally threw out the plushie.” she said, all the while trapping me in a bone-crushing hug.

 

“Silver.. Can’t… breath.” I managed to get the words out while frantically tapping the angel’s back.

 

“Oh,” She let me go and scooted back a little. “Sorry, just… I’m glad you are back to… well mostly back to your old self.”

At that comment, I finally looked down at myself and saw that indeed I was completely naked with only my long flooffy tail and long hair saving my modesty. Interestingly, both the fur and my hair retained the glittery starlight from my fox form. But the plushie was supposed to be just a regular fox.

“I… I’ll be right back.” Silver said and I looked up just in time to see her blushing as she hurried out of the room.

 

That was my cue to get up and put on some fresh clothes. I made sure to grab my phone on the way up and send a quick thank you message to Kid Chaos. As it turns out, my measurements did not change much, but I did get a little bit slimmer and just a hair shorter.

 

The biggest challenge I had was my tail since my things were not really tailored to fit someone with a tail. But some application of magic fixed that issue pretty quickly. When I was fully dressed, I made my way back downstairs, when I realized, I had not looked in the mirror since turning back, so I did just that. And would you look at that, my previously blue eyes, turned the same shade of emerald green as in my fox form, except that when I looked at it closet I could see the slight shimmer of my magic’s light dance across the iris.

“Pretty…” Silver muttered the same thing I thought.

 

“Thank you,” I twirled around in my medium-length skirt, and long sleeve, loose shirt. Then stepped up close to her, and looked her straight in the eye. “Look, my eyes changed too!”

 

Her face went beat red, as her eyes danced across my face trying to take in everything that she was seeing, and then she noticed the same thing I did just seconds earlier.

 

It was my time to blush as she leaned in closer to get a better look at my eyes, or so I thought because the next thing I knew was that she closed her eyes, and planted a kiss on my lips. It was all I could do as I pulled her in and hugged her closer, not wanting to let her go. But eventually, we had to break off the kiss when we ran out of oxygen.

 

As we pulled apart, I let out a quiet giggle, and said “Took you long enough.”

 

“You knew?” She asked as her blush got even deeper.

 

“You know, I'm many things, a thief, a bit of an airhead at times, a fox. But blind? Now that I am not.” she just bushed deeper at that. “And I don't even have the magic to read people’s minds.”

 

Silver mumbled something quietly, then she lit up like she just remembered something important.

“Here, clip this onto the plushie, I should be able to use this to scry on it,” and she pulled out a small grey stone with tiny speckles of white on it. It was shaped almost like a teardrop, with a rounded-out hole at the point, and a small cord going through it. And it had a protection rune expertly carved into it. ”It should also protect you from curses.” she said and she turned away with another deep blush on her face.

 

I could not help but grin, as I planted a kiss on her cheek and then said, “Thank you, I love it!” Then with a mischievous grin, I whispered into her “And I love you too.”