Contains: (females, anthro, inflation, deflation, hourglass inflation, magic, plot)

Hazel was jogged into wakefulness by a sudden tug at her wrist. Not realizing that she had even nodded off, awareness faded back into her brain and she nuzzled her cheek against a pillow. Then she realized what that pillow was made of and her eyes snapped open. The police officer instinctively thrashed at her restraints, forgetting that those bonds consisted primarily of her own body. Air hissed out of her nose as she breathed through her panic, exploring the limits of her mobility. She twitched her bloated paws, feeling her distended skin warp ever so slightly around her digits, like pressing a hand against a foam mattress. Hazel relented, sinking back into herself and opting to float gently in the air, the same titanic sphere that she had been last she really checked. Utterly immobilized by her own taut balloon of a body, with her face half buried by a pair of basketball-sized cheeks.

She grunted as the rope around her wrist tugged her forward, two large, black-tipped ears passing through the very bottom of her field of view. The girl. That little fox. Oh God, she had hoped it was all a dream.

Officer Hazel Donovan worked through her shock and retraced her steps, from back when she still had feet that touched the ground. She had been called out to handle the crowd at a potential hostage situation at the city museum, only to end up breaking the perimeter and chasing a small fennec inside after she had been distracted by a hologram of all things.

Akila. She said her name was Akila. Some sort of wizard or mage, which had sounded ridiculous until she started to actually cast spells. Hazel's crash course introduction to the world of magic had led to her getting chased around by some sort of monster unleashed by burglars. An Air Elemental, Akila had called it, trapped and wounded in their world and trying to go home. That’s when things had gotten hectic. She had ended up blown up into a caricatured blimp of her former self while attempting to save the diminutive fox, something that the Elemental apparently did in an effort to open a door back to its place of origin. Akila, for her part, had used the distraction to trap the creature inside of a vacuum cleaner, an idea that seemed just dumb enough to have actually worked. Now the mage saw fit to finally deal with the creature and Hazel was along for the ride, a balloon on a string.

The inflated retriever tried to get her bearings, noticing simple, stoney walls and industrial-sized doors all around her. There was a buzz of fluorescent lighting somewhere above her and the occasional painted mark on the wall directing someone to the garage or warehouse B. She realized that Akila had dragged her down to the maintenance and loading tunnels underneath the museum. That was a minor consolation. The prospect of being paraded outside in front of her compatriots and the rest of the city might have been a horrifying enough thought to cause her previous black out. She attempted to form a sentence, asking Akila where they were headed.

“Whrff mm Hmphrfrph” was all she could manage, snout pinned shut by her ballooned cheeks, which were mashed into her face in turn by the tight collar of her own grey-white fur that she had sunk into. “Ah, you’re awake!” The diminutive fennec offered cheerfully. “I don’t blame you for drifting off. That weightlessness you’re experiencing seems like it would be very soothing. As soporific as a hammock…” Hazel bristled inwardly. Soothing?

“Not to worry though.” Akila offered, tugging Hazel through a wide storage room populated with crates, sheet-covered artifacts and the occasional restoration table. “We’ll see to getting you back on your feet. As soon as we can find them!” She chuckled slightly at her own joke, leaving Hazel to fume.

The incapacitated officer spotted a line of sizable garage doors on the far wall. They either led deeper into the complex, down into the city’s infrastructure, or worse, the open streets. Her mind wandered as she imagined the nightmare scenario of her bloated paw slipping loose from the rope that tethered her to the young mage, sending her skyward like a lost children’s plaything. She was shaken out of her worry by more tugging on her wrist that sent slight vibrations through her hollow body. Akila strolled out from under the large circle of Hazel’s shadow, having tied her string off to something heavy enough. The magic-maker looked stranger and stranger every time the police officer got a good look at her. The initially plain, heavy clothing she wore was festooned with a thousand little alien touches, like the gold filigree along the collar of her longcoat, or the scarlet sash she wore between her sweater and cargo pants. Not to mention the ornate staff she was toting around in one hand, a small orb of light floating within the gilded framework that capped it. Her other hand was tugging along the body of the shop-vac she had trapped the spirit inside. It had been mummified in duct-tape and occasionally let off the occasional jostle or scratching noise.  Akila began to stalk between the four heavy doors, pausing to knock on each one and inspect the threshold, clearly searching for some phantom quality. “I apologize for the abduction” She mused. “I thought I should get you out of the open and somewhere we wouldn’t be disturbed. The best place to do this would be my sanctum, and if I can find the right door....” She rapped the butt of her staff against the third door to the left and smiled, placing an open palm against it. “Ah ha! Perfect.”

The small fox bent over to grip the manual handle on the bottom of the rolling door and with a grunt, forced it open. A sliver of daylight shone through the crack and across the floor, making Hazel wince. Outside. The little witch was actually going to float her out in view of the public. “Hrrgphmff!” The inflated retriever began to flail, her spherical body twitching ever so slightly as her distant paws flapped uselessly. Akila promptly slammed the gate shut again, and started pulling things out of her seemingly bottomless pockets. A bit of chalk, a bundle of dried leaves and a wiry instrument that looked like a mangled dousing rod. The fox started to mumble something and scribble around the margins of the portal, lighting the bundle with a snap of her fingers and letting the winding blue smoke drift overhead.

“Whrgm Fug?” Hazel asked.

“Just...cleaning.” Akila offered back, speaking in that undefinable dialect that curled her words across half the map. “Trying to smooth things out and...find the door.”

“Drr?” The balloon bobbed in midair.

“Door” Akila nodded, pulling a large ring of jangling keys out of her pocket and wedging a large brass one into the crack of the garage door, pulling it open.

Darkness and cool air greeted her on the other side. The outside world had vanished and been replaced by more corridors, and more stone.

“Come on then” Akila grabbed Hazel’s tether again. “It’s time you saw my place.”

Hazel was drawn through the portal, which smelled faintly of ash and copper. She instinctively recoiled back into herself as she was drawn inside. This new passageway was alien to her, the stonework a burned tan colour, much rougher and older looking than the painted cinder blocks she had been floating past until now. She let out a muffled yelp as her string was released and she floated upwards to bob against the ceiling, feeling the uneven, weathered stone panels against her expansive backside. She ruffled at this treatment, feeling something flare inside of her ovoid form. So much of her was just whirling air now, her body reduced to a hollow envelope stretched across nothing at all. It made her nauseous to think about, and as she did, an odd sensation started to make itself known somewhere in her core. With a metallic bang, the door behind her slid shut, sealing the passageway in darkness. Hazel twitched in the gloom as Akila stepped beneath her, the light at the end of her staff the sole source of illumination. “Hold on…” She muttered, and rapped the butt of her instrument against the floor. Something began to glow under the heavy material of her sleeves, and Akila stored her staff in the crook of her arm as she rolled up the layers of cloth around her arms, exposing a twisting, spiral pattern of triangular markings on her limbs that were glowing like fireflies. She held up her hands and the tiny shapes began to drift off of her forearms, like seeds from a dandelion, one after the other until the room was filled with shining points of golden light.

Hazel blinked, watching them drift through the air on their own weightless paths, some swirling past her face and passing harmlessly through her body. It made her feel like she was drifting through a vibrant night sky. Since this morning, all the magic she had seen had either been tricky, obscure or just plain horrible. She hadn’t been expecting something so simple and...beautiful.

“We’re almost there” Akila tugged Hazel back down from the ceiling. “Then I can help you. I promise.” The bloated retriever looked down into the fox’s eyes. They were a rich chocolate brown, wide and honest. Hazel nodded, as best she could.

The journey through the dark corridor took less time than she expected, the walls growing smoother as they went before Akila’s boots began to clack against tiles. Finally the way opened to a huge chamber. Hazel popped out of the passage and felt relieved to be back in more open air. Now all that mattered was the air in her.

As if reacting to their presence, several large sconces on the wall began to glow with a soft light, growing steadily brighter and revealing the room around her. It was a large, circular space with numerous other doorways dotting the circumference, all sealed with heavy stone slabs. Above her, stone walls tapered into thick masonic beams that curved overhead to support a domed canopy. The roof was a big glass skylight, allowing one to gaze up into the blackness above. It seemed as though there was no natural light to be found in this place.

The floor that Hazel hung over was a mosaic of black and white tiles that worked to create a colossal, spiralling labyrinth that stretched to either end of the room. Most of the pattern was covered by carpets, mats and tables that had been set up within. Apparently the little mage was no stranger to this place, with numerous amenities, furnishings, workspaces and what looked like a simple, cozy bed set up around the space. The entire room resembled a cross between an archeological dig and an open-concept apartment.

“Welcome to my Sanctum” Akila explained as she tied Hazel’s string off on a small folding table. “It isn’t the most impressive, I admit, but I’ve grown to love this drafty old ruin. Full of mysteries and secrets, or at least, I hope it is. I discovered it a few years ago, and ever since have been trying to make it into a home.” The vacuum canister she had been dragging around rustled slightly and Akila raised an eyebrow, quickly breaking away to find a safe place to put it.

Hazel felt as though she had been pulled into a foreign, long abandoned church of some obscure religion. Her mind tried to overlay some meaning or purpose to the room. It felt like a kind of antechamber, or vestry. A place of throughfare or commerce that had been scoured of anything that could hint at its meaning. Hazel glanced down to watch Akila pick her way through the eerie space with warm familiarity, and start to disrobe. Her large, heavy coat was tossed on a rack, jangling slightly with dozens of unseen components and embellishments that permeated it. Her deep green hoodie was unzipped and similarly discarded, leaving her clad in just her trousers and a simple white undershirt, a noticeable tum poking out from underneath. Akila swivelled and sighed. “It’s good to wriggle out from under all those layers, yah?”

Free of bulky outer clothing, Hazel had the opportunity to properly size up the diminutive spellcaster while she busied herself with gathering ingredients within a mortar and pestle. Despite being so short that even the tips of her oversized ears barely cleared five feet, she possessed a very robust profile.  Hazel's assumption that it was padded by all that heavy clothing proved to be incorrect. The broad hips and generous bust that the fox sported would have been impressive on a woman twice her height, but the tiny fennec was practically dwarfed by her own curvature.

The markings, or tattoos, didn't stop at her elbows. The spiralling triangle pattern on her forearms gave way to a pair of curved markings on both shoulders, with the tip of a larger inscription on her back peeking from beneath her shirt's neckline. The fox was obviously fond of inkings.

Akila glanced over her shoulder at Hazel, whose eyes quickly flickered away.

Bowl in hand, Akila approached Hazel, an unguent smell wafting from the sticky, sky-blue concoction she had prepared. Hazel recoiled as best she could but didn’t protest as her string was taken back up. The mage marched close to the center of the chamber, her eyes tracking the floor for some kind of pattern among the twisting designs. Angling her staff, she struck the ground with a resounding rap.

Nothing happened.

“Al’amah” the small fox spat out a foreign profanity under her breath. “Excuse me. I’m still figuring this place out. Sometimes it responds to my call...and sometimes it does what it likes.”

She adjusted the tip of her staff and stabbed at the ground. This time, something answered her ritual. The tiles on the floor rippled like a stone had been dropped into water, expanding into a large circle, before rebounding and collectively flipping over to reveal loose earth underneath. Within a second, a large section of the floor had been converted into a circle of soft, white sand.

Akila motioned with her staff and a small metal table scooted to her side of its own accord, giving her a surface to place her bowl of mystery goo.

“Let’s begin” Akila nodded, more to the floor and herself than the ballooned woman drifting above. She stalked around the edges of the circle, starting to use the tip of her staff as a stylus to etch deep patterns in the sand. A curving, elaborate circular pattern began to take shape in the earth, Hazel only able to catch the occasional glimpse of it from her elevated position. Every time she managed to get a look at the strange design that the fox was etching, it caused an off feeling in her gut, that same fluttering sensation in the core of her spherical body, like a flower trying to bloom.

“There” Akila nodded, completing the design. She stepped back, double checking the structure and linework on her elaborate bit of natural art before looking up at Hazel, who still dangled at the end of her string like the full moon. “I’ve managed to set up this holding circle for you. It should keep you steady and prime you for the enchantments I have to perform.”

Hazel could only twitch in response.

“Oh don’t worry. This’ll be fun.”

Akila yanked at Hazel’s string, sending her forward over the sand pit before she barked out something thick and Arabic-sounding. Hazel felt her expansive belly warm up and the air around her fill with soft, yellowish light from below. With another flick, the line of rope around her paw suddenly unwound and withdrew. Rope trick, she thought distantly.

Her position within the circle didn’t change, and to her relief, neither did her altitude. Akila had said the circle beneath her would hold and steady her. She really had no idea how it was supposed to work, so she just silently chalked it up to “magic” and let the fox do her work.

Maybe it was her position within an enchanted circle, but Hazel started to feel the fluttering core within her start to pulse a little louder. So much of her was air now, and felt as though it was starting to grow disruptive, to storm and grow restless. She twitched uncomfortably at this, but remained mostly stationary.

“You might start to feel your contents...shifting slightly.” Akila explained. “You’re probably reacting to the enchantments I’m applying. Let me walk you through it.”

The fox’s voice was coming from different areas of the room, as if she was scampering around and gathering things up.

“As far as I can tell, that Air Elemental was trying to use you as a conduit to open a portal to its home plane. Now, it was interrupted, but there’s a lot of primal and unstable elemental energy left within you. That’s why you’re still so…large.”

She seemed to say the last word with a touch of relish in her voice.

“I’m going to attempt to seal that half-portal inside of you, and bind it. I’ll be using a runic inscription method that I’m fond of. You may have noticed some of my own...illustrations.”

Hazel figured anything would be better than this, but of course, could do nothing. She heard the clacking of instruments as something was mixed together and then, a sudden chill, wet presence touching her underside. It was small, and slightly bristly, like a paintbrush.

Hazel wanted to twitch at the cool, ticklish sensation that was tracing across her belly, but all she could do was clench her bloated fingers and wince, the tremors being sent across the taut skin of her body making her quiver.

“This will help your body form a proper conduit for the sealing ritual. Tell the air inside of you where NOT to go.” Akila explained. She stepped away for a moment and Hazel finally saw the instrument she was using. Her staff had a large calligraphy brush suspended in the air at its tip, the head still coated in a thick, sky-blue pigment. Akila freshened her brush and daubed another handful of the dye against Hazel’s fur. “It might leave some lasting marks, but I hope you find that preferable to remaining your current shape…”

Hazel still couldn’t figure out whenever this little fox was making a joke or not.

With little else to keep her attention away from the constant pressure and tension pervading every inch of her body, Hazel tried to track the motions of her host as she continued to scribble on her. It felt like some sort of grand, spiralling pattern, with smaller offshooting branches. They seemed to be forming some kind of larger, hourglass shape. The police officer was in no way familiar with this kind of ritual. Until yesterday, she hadn’t even believed this kind of ceremony had any merit beyond the whims of those who indulged in their own delusions. Now she could only guess at the deeper meaning that it contained.

Even more distracting than the brush against her body was the growling, whirling feeling within her. It was only getting more intense the more the fox was touching her. She felt like she had a miniature tornado idly building within her, and tried to say something about it, but could only manage more muffled grunts.

“Hold on. Once this sets in, you should start to shrink.” Akila explained. “I hope….”

Still never fully reassured by the words of the magic maker, Hazel tried to swallow and control her breath as the swirling inside of her grew worse. It was an utterly alien sensation, and a reminder of how hollow and balloon-like she was. Her body pulsated slightly, and an idle gust plucked at her hair. The room around her was starting to grow blustery.

Akila had said she wanted to close some sort of portal that was inside of her, but it was starting to feel like that door didn’t want to be shut. There was a lot on the other side of it, possibly a whole world, and it was pushing harder and harder.

“Mmnnff! FFWWPP!” Hazel grunted. “FMFRFF MMFFNMM!”

“Almost….” Akila said, going over a curving line near Hazel’s navel for a third time.

Something inside of Hazel erupted, and her eyes went wide. Within a second, she almost doubled in size, her fur standing on end and her skin being stretched so tightly it almost hummed. Then the malstrom was outside of her, past the bounds of her body. Akila was bowled over almost instantly as a miniature hurricane manifested within the room, with the overinflated retriever at its center. Tables and chairs clattered across the space, papers and delicate objects were picked up and added to the cloud of debris that filled the large chamber. Whatever blast of elemental energy had been unleashed was reacting with the sanctum. The lights on the wall flared like miniature suns, and every door lining the space abruptly flew open. Hazel squinted through the chaos at Akila, who had found her feet and was steadily making her way back towards the binding circle. She had her staff out, the familiar ball of light glowing at its tip and was shouting something over the din. The fresh markings that had been painted on her belly began to tingle and burn all at once, and Hazel felt something shoot through her like a bolt of lightning from that point of contact. All at once the roaring presence inside of Hazel froze and strained against the alien presence curling around it, manipulating and squeezing it. To the retriever, it felt like an intense bout of indigestion. The warring entities inside of her clicked, and she felt something inside of her clench uncomfortably. At the far side of the room something heavy hit the ground and there was a great airy shriek.

Akila brought her hands to her knees, panting as the winds started to die down.

“We really had a live one there. I didn’t-”

A loud, familiar scuttling noise and the sound of ragged breath reached Hazel and Akila’s ears. Hazel strained to look while the fox simply turned, just in time to see a scrabbling, slender shape duck out of sight through one of the many now open doors.

“Oh, hell” The mage mumbled. The carefully wrapped vacuum canister that she had imprisoned the Air Elemental in had been split asunder, rended open by the powerful magics that still permeated the room.

The sound of crashing and the howling of powerful wind down long corridors echoed from one of the darkened hallways that lined the room. Akila scampered forward, the familiar ball of light on her staff burning with intensity. She swung the stick like a baseball bat, launching a glimmering projectile from the tip in an arc that sailed down the corridor like a flare, illuminating the walls as it passed and shattering against the far end with a burst of light, briefly revealing the scrabbling, spidery form of the air elemental as it rounded a corner.  “Al’amah” Akila swore again. “Should have seen that coming. Should have warded it better. Stupid, amateur mistake…” The mage was talking faster now, her confidence fading as the situation spiralled out of her control. She started to sift through the debris lining the room, shoving the occasional artifact into her large pockets.

“I can’t let that thing run around here unmonitored. There is a lot of dangerous..stuff in here and probably a lot more that I don’t even know about. It should be a little more stable after that binding charm I put on it, but if it’s as reactive as..well...you.” She gestured upwards to Hazel as papers continued to flutter the ground all around the room. “Then there’s no telling what it could do. It’s desperate, and still trying to get home.”

The small fennec reached down and looped an odd, bulky device of oiled wood and brass over one shoulder, wearing it like a satchel and fiddling with several switches on one side. “You should be stable now. Just hang back and let the enchantment sink in. And if you do find your feet, just stay in the circle and you should be safe.”

Akila looked up at Hazel’s large, ovoid form and cocked her head with a look of pensive fondness. Almost like she was getting one last good look at it. Hazel could only furrow her brow in response.

“I need to go!” Akila shouted over her shoulder as she ran down the passage the elemental had chosen. “Stay in the circle!” Her voice echoed, dwindling into nothing as her footsteps faded.

Alone and immobilized, Hazel could do nothing but hang in the air, rotating slowly. The previous cataclysm of high winds had died down, and the room was starting to settle into a more tranquil state of dishevelment. Hazel’s brief overinflation had reduced and now she was back to the more “manageable” size of a ten-foot sphere. She idly scratched at the bloated area of fur surrounding one of her hands and tried to get a read on her immediate environment. The room had been pretty thoroughly wrecked by her unintentional outburst, strewn with overturned tables, scattered possessions and more than a few shattered knick knacks. In spite of the situation, Hazel hoped that nothing too valuable had been trashed in the cyclone. There seemed to be nine doors in all lining the room, including the one that Hazel and Akila had arrived through. She wondered if that one even led back to a door anymore.

A loud crash and a yelp echoed from one of the doorways, causing the police officer to instinctively twist her head around to try and track the sound. While still met with the cushioney resistance of her own cheeks and body, Hazel noted that she was slightly less immobilized than before, the simplest of movements growing easier.

She turned her senses inwards to what was happening in her great sphere of a body. The bizarre, tentacular feeling of the enchantment Akila had written on to her belly was starting to fade, but that pulsing, whirling core within her hadn’t abated. She felt like a snowglobe, a thin round shell containing a turbulent storm that had been shaken up. She took in a deep breath to steady herself and felt the air pour into her, adding to her maelstrom. The presence inside of her flexed and shuddered in response.

Hazel could only guess what was happening to her. The nausea has faded and now she was reminded of how she felt after an intense run. Out of breath, sweating, but breathing hard and using every bit of oxygen that she could take in. It was like a headrush spread across her whole body, and it was starting to tingle in a bizarrely pleasant way. She shifted slightly, and realized that she could actually move her arms and legs.

That was certainly a start. They were still only half-formed nubs on her body, and she didn’t feel any smaller, but the fact that she had limbs as opposed to half-buried flapping digits was a step in the right direction. Wiggling her vestigial limbs as best she could in an attempt to reorient herself, Hazel succeeded in throwing herself into a very slow spin, rotating in midair and giving herself a gradual panorama of the room around her. She gave an intense, frustrated sigh, which seemed to incur another zephyr of turbulent winds throughout the room.

Somewhere on the side of the room that Hazel was facing away from, another crashing sound and the sudden echo of high winds reached her from down a new corridor. Unless each separate doorway in the antechamber branched off into its own web of rooms, Akila was probably chasing that thing around an outer ring of connected spaces. The cop tried to keep track of where the sounds were coming from and build an auditory map of her unfamiliar dwellings. As she rotated around to view the majority of the sanctum, Akila suddenly burst into view through one of the doors. She motioned behind herself as she crossed the threshold, causing the portal to slam shut. Her hair and fur looked thoroughly windswept as she stomped through the space, out of breath and bearing a nasty-looking scrape on one arm. Her staff was emitting sudden and dangerous looking sparks from its tip.

“Looking good Officer Donovan!” Akila waved to Hazel, a slightly brittle smile plastered across her muzzle. “Me and our friend are just working things out. It looks like it’s given up on trying to open a portal on its own and is looking for a way out of our plane in the Reliquary. It doesn’t like how I keep shutting doors in its face.”

The fennec started sifting through scattered papers, grabbing what looked like a coiled up length of silver chain.

“Containment, that’s the priority.” Akila explained, more to herself than Hazel. “Promise I’ll get back to you, just need to focus on….containment…” She mumbled something under her breath and charged off through another doorway, leaving Hazel alone again.

Left to her own devices, the ballooned retriever opted back to tracking her incremental deflation. Eventually her arms and legs became mobile enough to manipulate her dizzy rotations, and her body withdrew enough to free her head. She yawned and opened her mouth fully for the first time in what felt like ages and blew out a raspberry through numb lips.

“God, thatsh better” Hazel sighed to herself. Her ballooned cheeks still muffling her speech slightly. She wiggled her thick, cone-like arms as though she was treading water and managed to pivot in place, swinging her similarly turgid legs beneath her and balancing her upper torso atop her own orb of a belly. It was still difficult to see anything below the swell of her breasts, but Hazel was finally half-way mobile and feeling decidedly less like a pawn of her own buoyancy and greatly less helpless. It was almost relaxing to simply drift weightlessly in the air. Drumming her hands against the side of her belly, Donovan had to wonder where all the air inside of her was actually going. It certainly wasn’t exiting her through any of her orifices, as she had quietly dreaded, so short of subcutaneous exhalation or all that wind just vanishing, there had to be some sort of explanation. She took another deep breath, focusing on the “core” inside of her.

The swirling air within her had shifted, tightening itself and withdrawing. And her core felt as though it had mutated in response to the enchantment painted on her stomach, spiderwebbing through her body and pulsing like a heartbeat. It was doing something inside of her, operating some sort of simple function, something familiar…

Inhaling. That was the word for the familiar but out of place sensation. The core within her was sucking the air out of her body like a third lung and depositing it...somewhere else.

Like one’s own breathing, the second Hazel began to think about it, the inhalation consciously faltered. She grimaced and concentrated on it again, willing it to resume its task. And the core responded, sucking in air once more.

“Portals…” Hazel said aloud to herself. The energy within responded to that, beating faster. She fluttered her legs slightly, enjoying the increased mobility and trying to keep herself upright.

Another echoing bang emanated from another doorway, and what looked like a blossoming fireball rushed down the corridor it was attached to as Hazel desperately rotated herself to get a clear look. The blast of light erupted into the main chamber, swiftly dissipating as a mist of  bright sparkles. A second later, Akila sailed into the room after it, soaking wet and looking much worse for wear. The fox hauled herself back to her feet as Hazel’s core flared with life and the room’s air began to churn once more. A howling noise reached the pair as the shambling but speedy shape of the air elemental burst into view from the shadowed hallway, loping forward and dragging a hurricane behind it.

The creature had changed. It looked less solid, more like a ghost than something material, and the spiral markings that covered its body were glowing a bright white. It looked more complete somehow, like it was halfway home.

Akila made a grab at her staff that had tumbled from her grip, but the gale force winds ripping into the room were suddenly beneath her, and the tiny fox was catapulted towards the ceiling. Hazel barely tracked her ascent as the mage managed to grab hold of one of support beams above them. The inflated officer’s gaze was fixed on the elemental as another loud, shuddering howl emanated from its half-formed body, another thunderous gout of wind that tore about the space.

Hazel remained still, her fur barely ruffled by the storm. Her core had ignited, filling her body with that rush, that clarity of hyperoxygenation. It felt like a steel cable was weaving itself out of her body, and latching onto the elemental as she and it reacted to one another. It would use its storm to tear apart the sanctum, dash Akila to pieces against the stone, pull the roof down on its own head. Out of pain, out of desperation and fear.

But not Hazel. Hazel floated calmly. She took in a long breath, letting it pass into her and disappear through the portal. In an instant, amidst the chaos, she was unafraid. Because it wasn’t the creature’s storm. It was hers. She was the eye of the hurricane.

Hazel inhaled again, more forcefully. She kept breathing inward, feeding that hungry core within her and letting it grow. She could feel the whirling inscription on her belly, tingling and reacting, trying to reshape itself to accommodate this surge of power. Her power.

The elemental turned its needle-like face towards the puffy white dog in front of it. It pulled itself forward, almost cautiously, then broke into a dead sprint. Hazel opened her mouth wide and the portal to the Plane of Air within her ignited like the sun. The creature of air became mist and flowed past her lips. She felt it whirl within her, searching for an exit. She flexed her core and felt it reach out to the lost elemental. It wanted to go home. She sent it on its way.

Hazel coughed as she felt the presence of the elemental disappear from within her. She centered herself, tried to recollect her thoughts as the buzzing sense of energy subsided from her skin. The core within her settled, and with a conscious thought, Hazel could get it to resume siphoning air out of her body. In congress, the winds of the room died back down. Peace settled around her.

“Look out!” Akila barked from above, and with a sudden impact, Hazel’s vision was filled with a blur of tawny fur and flailing limbs as the small fennec landed directly within her pillowy cleavage. Hazel let out a “WHOOOPH” of alarm as Akila bounced back upwards, wriggling in midair to wrap her arms around Hazel’s neck, her body collapsing back on top of the bloated retriever.

“Did….didja just use me as an air cushion?!” Hazel panted. The tip of her nose was inches from Akila’s.

“My grip was slipping.” The mage apologized. “That was excellent work by the way. I was so busy trying to close that portal inside of you, I never thought to actually use it.” “It wasn’t a priority of mine either.” Hazel huffed. “Now get off of me, you’re still damp.” “Sorry” Akila unwrapped her arms from around Donovan’s neck and carefully slid back onto the ground over the curve of her belly. The tip of Hazel’s feet made contact a moment after Akila’s as her buoyancy finally started to dissipate.

“I feel like a pool toy” Hazel patted her spherical belly with still bloated arms. “Can you finish this up?” “Right!” Akila nodded. “Finishing touches”

A moment of rummaging and the mage found her paintbrush, still glistening with bright blue dye.

“Now hold still….” she crept back into the circle, taking Hazel by the hand. “This will be a lot easier now that I can actually see your arms and legs…” The paint still tingled as it went on, Akila expertly inscribing whirling lines on her forearms, then crouching down to paint on her thighs. Hazel blushed as she realized that her only article of clothing was a heavily overstretched blue shirt that barely cleared her navel.

As the magic maker completed her last pass of ink, she spoke a brief final incantation and placed her hand on Hazel’s belly. The officer’s internal portal flared again and the deflation accelerated, her arms and legs tensing around the points where the inscriptions had been drawn and pushing the air into her core, where it was sucked away. Hazel’s old dimensions finally came back as her feet settled firmly against the floor. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, finally looking at herself.

She still couldn’t see her toes.

Hazel’s relief swiftly transformed into irritation. Looking down only afforded her a bird’s eye view of her own expansive chest and fuzzy white cleavage. Her breasts had certainly shrunk with the rest of her, but were still almost the size of basketballs, taut and round in defiance of gravity. She bobbed awkwardly to grab at them, taking a step out of the circle and feeling her thighs rub together in an unnatural way.

“No…” Donovan muttered as she brought her hands down to feel at her legs. Her thighs had become unnaturally thick, supporting a similarly bulbous ass that jutted out behind like a small shelf. She grabbed her inflated cheeks and felt them resist her grip, as springy as a bouncy castle.

“What….what the hell is this?” Hazel growled, turning back to a very sheepish looking Akila. “You turned me into a blow-up doll!”

“Well…” The small mage struggled to find the words. “I was worried that this would happen. I can’t really seal that portal inside of you, and after all the power you put into it bringing that elemental home, I don’t think anyone can. It’s a part of you now. And that means there’s going to be a little bit of air from that plane flowing through you….which has clearly caused a little...residual bloating.”

“Why the boobs…” Hazel grimaced, eyeballing Akila over the crest of her bust.

“That...was me.” Akila threw up her hands. “Just redistributing the air a bit. I honestly thought you’d prefer some enhanced proportions here and there instead of a belly the size of a beachball. It’s why I put the symbol on your stomach and not your chest.”

Hazel groaned and collapsed back onto her inflated rear, ruefully noting how easily it cushioned her landing.

“You were supposed to bring me back to normal…how the hell am I gonna show my face at the precinct now?”

Akila sat next to her. “I should have consulted with you a bit more. I’m sorry, I can get a little...worked up. But I’ve done everything I can. I’m sure we can think of something.”

“Right…” Hazel grunted. She examined her arms, at the dull blue markings that had seemingly been dyed directly into her fur. She rubbed one slightly as if she expected it to come off, but succeeded only in ruffling her own fur. They were a part of her now. Just like her inflated assets, just like that core of elemental power she could feel simmering within her. Hazel sighed, and a gust of air conjured itself in front of her, bowling a cloud of papers into the air.

Donovan’s eyes widened as she clapped a hand over her muzzle. She turned to Akila, who was looking back with stars in her eyes.

“You see?” Akila said excitedly. “You’ve bonded with that little portal! You’re linked to the Plane of Air! Who knows what you’d be capable of if you took the time to study…” Her smile faltered at Hazel’s weary look. “Sorry....That’s me getting carried away again.”

The two sat in silence for a while. Hazel burped slightly.

“So…” She finally asked. “Why are you all wet?”

Akila looked down at her slightly matted fur and soaked through clothing. “Oh, right. While I was chasing our friend, I fell in the pool.”

“You have a pool?”

“Yeah!” Akila rose to her feet, extending her hand. “I could show you. If you want to know the way...”

Hazel looked into the fennec’s smiling face, then down at her offered palm.

“Yeah” She took it. “Yeah I think I do.”