Welcome to Valsa

Cyd lay in bed as she recovered from the close brush with the ritual magic. Jev's voice still rang in her ears.

"Cyd. Get on the floor and show me that pussy. Show me how you fuck yourself."

Her fingers wormed between her legs as if they had a will of their own. She gave herself over to the feeling, arching her back, and playing with her nipples as she abused her sex again. A crack resounded in the room from her elbow. She could feel the digits of her fingers lengthening. Her spine cracked and extended into a tail. Her change was happening. A buzz of worry formed at the back of her head. She wasn't supposed to be changing. It wasn't even noon yet.

She couldn't stop herself from the masturbation that had overtaken her. It was like a compulsion. Her orgasm started even as fur sprouted on her arms and legs. She panted and whined under her own assault until finally, the transformation was complete. She drew her hands away from herself.

Jev and Sam sat on the couch, Sam still wearing the guise of her true self. The click of claws on the vinyl floor drew their attention. From the hallway emerged a figure, maybe two and a quarter metres tall. Thick, jet-black fur covered its extremities from the clawed feet to the wolflike head, but the torso and thighs had only glossy, short fur, revealing everything beneath. Blazing red eyes, slitted like a snake's, glared out from beneath a brow that hosted a curled pair of ram's horns. Black wings spread from her back. Powerful werewolf muscles were tempered by a litheness and grace that made every motion like a demand to be touched, and the bushy tail that swung behind her whipped and flicked in an un-wolf-like fashion.

"Uh... Guys? I think something's wrong."

Sam returned to her usual violet form and stood.

"Cyd?"

She had a hand outstretched, contemplating it as though it belonged to someone else.

"Yeah, it's me... I think."

Sam approached Cyd cautiously, Jev following close behind.

"How do you feel?"

Cyd's red eyes locked on to Jev's, then Sam's.

"Weird. Feels like nothing is quite real."

Sam reached out and touched the large wings trailing behind the werewolf.

"But you're not, like, hungry... Or horny? Anything like that?"

Jev's hands found her breasts and started massaging and rubbing at them. Cyd hummed appreciatively but said nothing. Sam glanced at him, frowning.

"I don't think it's exactly the time for that, Jev."

Jev shook his head, as if not realising what he was doing. He jerked his hands back, holding them behind himself as though expecting them to betray him again. Sam took this all in, snapping her fingers before Cyd to recapture her attention. Cyd blinked, furrowing her brow,

"Sorry. Uh, I mean, I could eat. And what Jev was doing felt really good... But it's not like I'm in heat."

Jev seemed to be in an active struggle with himself to keep his hands off of Cyd. Sam pointed to the far corner of the living room.

"Jev, why don't you go over there. See if it's any better."

Standing close to to the television and away from Cyd, Jev seemed to relax. He scratched the back of his neck.

"At least it seems to have a limited range of effect."

Sam nodded thoughtfully. She turned to Cyd.

"I'd like to try an experiment. Cyd, go stand by the fridge and think really hard about wanting Jev to fuck you. Just however you'd like. Jev, you just stay there and don't move."

Cyd complied, standing by the fridge as requested. Her brow furrowed. Almost immediately, Jev found himself growing hard, even despite the recent activity. He felt like he was being called. However, he'd been given the task to stay, and so his feet stood fast. Sam looked at him.

"Anything?"

He chuckled nervously.

"Uh, yeah, I'm definitely feeling something."

Sam motioned to Cyd with a sharp cutting motion, and the sensation stopped.

"Alright. I want to test something, but I need your permission to use a power on you I'm not normally able to. Would you be OK with that?"

Jev nodded. The next thing he knew, he was wrapped around Sam, his hands grasping at her ass while his face was in the crook of her neck. She stroked the back of his neck and he released her.

"So, I think it's safe to say what you felt from Cyd wasn't that strong."

A low moan emerged from the bathroom. Sam winced in embarrassment.

"Oh, shit. I forgot about Kayli."

The moan was followed by a few more. Jev laughed.

"Well, it doesn't sound like she's gonna be too upset about it. Maybe I'll just go in there and help her out." He looked down at his prominently tented shorts, "She might be willing to help me deal with this..."

Cyd started to argue, but Sam cut her off.

"I'd rather you not get into that quite yet. We don't know what succubus abilities you have right now, and it's possible you could drain Jev, possibly hurting him since you haven't learned to control it."

Cyd huffed as a giggle emerged from the bathroom.

"I don't like this, Sam. I feel weird, like I'm going to fade away into nothing. What's going on? What's happening to me?"

Sam brought Cyd to sit on the couch beside her. She sighed deeply.

"I don't know. It seems pretty clear that you've been affected by the ritual in some way and you've ended up with some succubus-like features, but I can say for sure you're not a succubus. The hunger would be getting to you if you were. It would be all you could think of to feed right now, and with both Jev here and Kayli in the next room, naked, you probably would have attacked one of them, or had to go somewhere to get composure. You're still ok as far as that goes?"

Cyd nodded.

"Honestly, this feeling of 'unreality' is a bit too distracting to really feel like sex at all, right now... But when Jev was touching me, it was all I could think about."

Sam reached out, grabbing Cyd's boobs in a manner much like Jev had earlier.

"What about now? Feel anything when I do it?"

Cyd shook her head.

"Not really. I mean, you give a good massage and all, but it doesn't have that kind of electricity it had."

Sam withdrew.

"I'm not surprised. A succubus can't do much to another succubus. You can't pour water out of an empty bucket, after all."

Cyd shot up in her seat, looking around frantically.

"What was that?"

There was ijinka on the air. Either Jev or Kayli had gotten off in the next room. There would likely be another in the next few seconds. Sam patted Cyd's thigh.

"That's just an orgasm nearby. You may be able to sense it more strongly because of your werewolf senses."

She relaxed slightly but tensed again as another wave rolled through, this time accompanied by appreciative moans from Kayli emanating from the bathroom.

"I'll say... It's like lightning striking nearby. I can feel it in my bones."

Sam looked at her sympathetically.

"Well, I'd prefer it if we were back home, but we're not totally without options here. I'll do some research, and we'll see if we can find what's going on. More importantly: how to fix it."

Sam crossed the room to sit at Jev's computer desk and started the machine up. Unlike many single guys, the desktop wasn't adorned by a scantily-clad woman, but rather a view of the majeball field at Dearstar Stadium. Whimsically, it seemed that Jev had the various icons for his computer arranged as though they were sitting in the seats. Cute, but it made finding the browser a pain.

Binred was, of course, her first stop for information. br/ConcubusLife was one of the most active sub-bins for her kind, but she was unsurprised to find that there wasn't any information to be found. The Ritual of Giving wasn't something that happened every day and it was usually done without people outside of the circle. A thread on br/RitualMagic caught her attention, however, and following a few links she got to a description of a condition sounding similar to Cyd's: Echidnaism. It was a condition where an Enchantment applied in part on top of another, leading to the victim becoming half one thing and half the other.

The good news was that the condition seemed to be inherently unstable. It would eventually dissipate on its own. However, given that there was absolutely no way that Cyd would be able to get onto an aeroplane in her current condition, and given that the article did not indicate what kind of time frame it would need to dissipate, Sam needed further answers.

"You know there's a magical conditions program at the University, right?"

Sam turned to see Kayli, fully dressed, behind her. She wasn't sure when the redhead had snuck up behind her.

"Is it any good?"

Kayli shrugged.

"I mean, I've never had to be treated by a doctor who graduated from there, but magic is more and more a fact of life here. I'd suggest taking Cyd to the hospital, but I don't know how you'd make it into the building if she's as... gropeable... as she looks right now."

Cyd scooted back on the couch to give Kayli a bit of a reprieve. Jev was watching on from the kitchen, obvious concern etched into his face as he looked at Cyd. Sam looked back to Kayli.

"Do you think you could get me in touch with someone who can maybe answer a few questions?"

Kayli nodded.

"I'd need to get a change of clothes first. This is fine for a party, but something a bit more practical would be good."

Sam "dressed" herself in a University of Severna t-shirt and yoga pants and stood from the chair.

"The sooner we go, the sooner we're back."

She wrapped her arms around Jev, giving him a reassuring kiss.

"Keep her calm, and keep her company while we're gone. She's only kind of a succubus, so there shouldn't be any real danger to you if you need to bang her a few times while we're gone. From what I've read she shouldn't be able to feed from you like a real succubus. But that sex aura might make it tough for you to stop once you've started, so make sure you're ready for it if you do."

Jev nodded his understanding, squeezing Sam's butt gently as a way to wish her good luck. Sam and Kayli exited the apartment together, leaving just him and Cyd behind.

"So, what do you want for lunch?"

Cyd sighed, lowering her eyes to the floor.

"This is the part where I say 'you!' and proceed to have my way with you on every flat surface int he apartment, isn't it?"

Jev pulled a box out of the cupboard.

"I mean, if you don't want that I've got boxed macaroni and cheese."

This managed to get a sincere laugh out of her.

"Sure, why not."

The TV was packed for moving, and Cyd wasn't in the mood to browse the internet, on the phone or the computer, so she simply watched Jev as he threw lunch together. The kitchen was small, even compared to the house in Valsa, but he seemed to have a process as he jumped from one task to another. Now and again he'd look at her, just to make sure she was still ok. The meal wasn't especially great, but it was sufficient to end the empty feeling within.

Jev sat with her at the table, even though she could tell he was struggling to restrain himself through the meal. They nevertheless made it through lunch mostly normally, the only difference being that they both restrained themselves from their usual flirtatious banter, feeling like it might simply make things worse. Cyd could tell the strain was growing on Jev. He kept flexing his hands as if trying to remind them who was in control. Worse, Cyd herself desperately wanted to feel his touch.

Jev sighed.

"Look, maybe we're just being silly about this? If something happens, Sam says there's probably no harm done. I just want to run my hands all over your body, you want me to. We're two adults who are actively in a consenting relationship. There's literally nothing wrong with that."

Cyd felt herself nodding. His logic was sound, but there was one thing which gave her reservations.

"Sam said there's

probably

no harm done. That doesn't mean there's no chance at all."

Jev was drawing closer.

"Sure, but all of your other succubus abilities have been weaker than usual. It makes sense that if you could feed off of me, that would be weaker too. I'm starting to be able to hold up against Sam. It stands to reason that even if you did feed I'd be better able to resist it."

Cyd said nothing, trying to find a flaw in his logic.

"Look, how about we start innocently? A massage or something. I just need to touch your body. Maybe if I can give myself something then we can keep me distracted with that."

His hand was on her shoulder and had already started to press into the muscles there. For the first time since this had begun, Cyd's body felt like her own. She growled in satisfaction.

"Bed. Massage. Now."

The University of Balisport wasn't as large as Severna's, at least not in terms of the raw size of the campus. There were more buildings, however, and those buildings were larger. Not only that, but Balisport also hosted four other universities, while Severna only had one. She knew Belle had talked about trying to apply to Mariton when they'd been in school together, given how prestigious their law course was, but the U of S had been more than sufficient.

Kayli knew exactly where to go, and was leading Sam through buildings in a way that felt like a labyrinth. The buildings were mostly connected by underground tunnels, a convenience during the cold winter months, and since the metro station was also underground, she'd been leading them through the tunnels to the medical building. She took them up several flights of stairs, making Sam wish she'd chosen not to disguise herself so that she could fly up. This would surely surprise more than a few students but also be faster and substantially less annoying than walking up several flights of stairs, and Sam was ready to get moving.

Kayli led them to one set of offices, spoke to someone there, and then led them across the building and up another two floors to another set of offices. She checked a chart posted on the wall.

"Ok, so Dr. Halburn has office hours here in about 20 minutes. He teaches Arcane Toxicology and Magic Pathology, so he should be able to give us a few pointers."

Sam nodded, taking a seat on the floor, and leaning against the wall. She checked her phone. There'd been no response there from Jev or Cyd, which Sam wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not. Kayli flopped down to sit beside her.

"I feel a little responsible for all of this. If it hadn't been for that ritual..."

Sam shook her head.

"It's not your fault. I should have been more diligent getting Cyd out of the way, or left her a note, or something. I always thought that this was all about secrecy and privacy. No one ever warned me that there might be actual consequences if someone peeked."

She sighed, clutching the sides of her head with balled fists in frustration.

"I should have done more research."

Kayli rubbed her back sympathetically.

"Was this your first time doing the ritual? Aside from... when you did it the first time, that is."

Again, Sam shook her head.

"No, there's been a few. Once was even more stopgap than this morning. I've just never had someone interrupt it before."

The redhead nodded and fell silent for a bit.

"Is there... I mean, Cyd's ended up the way that she is... Is there any chance that it affected the ritual?"

Sam laughed quietly to herself. She was sure that the thought had been on Kayli's mind since finding out what had happened to Cyd and the younger woman had been waiting for a discreet time to ask without seeming unsympathetic to Cyd's problem.

"The general rule of magic is that what happens in the circle stays in the circle. There might have been a problem if Cyd had walked in, but Jev did good in stopping her the way he did. Everything I saw tells me you should be good to go, so long as you keep up the ritual.

A sense of relief exuded from Kayli in waves. Sam smiled despite herself.

"If I'd thought there was a chance it didn't work, don't worry, we'd have done it again. It doesn't take too long, after all."

A tall, lanky orcish man walked around the corner carrying a document case. He noticed the two women waiting as he fished out some keys to unlock the door.

"I'll be with you girls in a few minutes. Just a couple of things I need to take care of first."

He entered the office, closing the door behind him. Kayli rolled her eyes.

"That's always the way with profs. Always gonna make you wait. At least doctors have a waiting room..."

Sam chuckled.

"Someone get a chance to exert their power over you, even in a small way, they're gonna do it."

She thought about Jev.

"Well, they'll usually do it."

It took nearly another 10 minutes before the doctor opened his door, looking down at them and waving them to join him in the office.

"Alright, girls, what can I help you with?"

Sam regretted not giving thought to how she was going to ask the question. Her first inclination was to lie, to present the situation as hypothetical. But she owed it to Cyd to make sure the professor knew exactly how serious the situation was.

"We need help turning an echidna back to her natural form."

Professor Halburn chuckled dismissively.

"I think someone is playing a prank on you girls. Somebody would have to be playing around with some serious magic for that to even hope to be possible."

Sam looked at Kayli, who averted her gaze.

"Something like the Ritual of Giving?"

That made him stop. He adjusted a pair of horn-rimmed glasses on his face and looked at them in full seriousness.

"Please tell me this isn't some stupid sorority prank gone wrong..."

Sam explained the situation in full to the professor. By the end, he had his glasses off and was rubbing the bridge of his nose with two thick fingers.

"So, you're a succubus. She wants to be a succubus. Your friend, who is a werewolf, doesn't want to be a succubus, but has managed to get herself caught in the crossfire because your best plan to keep her out of the way was to fuck her unconscious and close her in a room rather than, I dunno, asking her nicely to give you twenty minutes' privacy?"

Sam stared at the ground, not meeting the professor's gaze.

"I mean, I suppose when you put it like that it sounds pretty stupid."

He harrumphed.

"That's because it

was

pretty stupid. You're lucky that the issue is something reversible and she didn't ruin your magic circle in the middle of your ritual. Your friend did some good thinking, but unfortunately it's probably the cause of your other friend's problem."

Sam waited for him to explain, but an explanation was not immediately forthcoming.

"Ok, so what's the solution?"

Harburn had taken out a notebook and started leafing through it. Then he typed something into his computer.

"The easiest case is just to let the condition run its course. You friend should be back to normal within a week or so."

Kayli stepped forward this time.

"Cyd's got to be on an airplane in a few days. We need a solution that's faster."

He grunted.

"Of course you do... Well, the problem you have right now is this: the ijinka you were channelling for that ritual was suffusing the room you were in. Once she came in contact with it, your friend would have been mostly going on instinct, trying to find the nearest thing to mate with. When your other friend told her to stop and she started to pleasure herself because of it, she became like an ijinka conduit. This is basically what would have been happening to you at this time."

He pointed at Kayli.

"It would have been less extreme for her, obviously, but without the benefit of the ritual circle, your friend wasn't protected by the things that are attracted to powerful sources of ijinka. In this case, it's probably a partial succubus Enchantment — one that's between hosts and not re-formed enough to actually do a bonding. So it's just held there like a leaf on a drain. The water holds the leaf stuck to the drain, while the leaf keeps the water from draining out. Eventually enough water drains out that the leaf can come loose and blow away."