(M to Dog, People to Various)

It was a beautiful day. The sun was out, the skies were clear, and not a gust of wind drowned out the chanting of protestors. In other words, it was Joey’s favorite kind of day.

“Go home, colonizers!” A frumpy woman with a remarkably loud haircut threw an egg at the nearest house. It landed with a satisfying crack, its yolk marring what would normally be a delightful paint job.

It would normally be one – if it wasn’t done by one of the cruel Salemites that had taken this land from the Americans who’d rightfully taken it from them. Granted, there may have been some talk of burnings and whatnot, but that didn’t make their cause any less just.

“What do we want?” Joey chanted. He kept his voice strong, purposeful. It was the exact kind of tone that Melissa loved.

He looked to her with a smile, and she returned it with her own. Honestly, Joey wasn’t sure how he’s gotten this lucky. They were a match made in heaven, both of them so sure of their opinions that they’d cast aside every friend who’d disagreed with them on the slightest matter.

Immigration? Blocked on Discord.

Tax reform? Delted from contacts.

Any negativity towards Roman Polanski, who is a literal child rapist that fled America because otherwise he might face consequences for drugging and raping a teenage girl, and who continues to make films and live entirely freely despite being an abhorrent pox on the human species as a whole and this is all true look it up why does he still keep getting awards? Cancelled for good measure.

Really, it would be hard to find two people who got along better – though it wasn’t hard to find them, given that their house sported more flags than the United Nations. That was just a natural consequence of their completely natural and sane urge to champion all of the latest trends.

And today’s trend, again, happened to be the truest of all. After all, they simply couldn’t accept the fact that good Americans (well, the ones that voted the same as Joey and Melissa, of course) were being unhoused by magical folk.

Sure, originally the Salemites had lived there. Yes, they were driven from their homes in a series of bloody purges. But that was the past, couldn’t the Salemites just get over it and live somewhere else? After all, the good people of America had built so much after taking over the land! Like… Fast food. And… An Amazon warehouse.

Yes, the land was thriving now, and even though the witches had somehow gotten rid of all local crime (likely unrelated to the sudden prevalence of woodland animal life), and had added small businesses to the area, and somehow had ensured improved the air quality index… Well, that didn’t change the fact that they were weird, and they did weird things, and they probably weirdly voted for someone that didn’t have America’s best businesses in mind.

“What do we want?” Joey shouted again.

“Freedom from witches!” Came the enthusiastic reply.

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

Ah, this kind of protest did a body good. That’s why Joey was stressed all the time, unable to sleep, and addicted to his screen. Because justice wasn’t easy, and this was the greatest justice of all.

“From the city to the lakes, no more magic shall we make! A lesson we all should learn, let’s let every last witch burn!” Joey chanted enthusiastically, repeating that wonderful little rhyme that he’d been given by his new supervisor.

A small, quiet part of him wondered why he was being paid to show up, and why he had to make daily activism review reports (or DARRs, for short). But that part was starved for attention and exercise alike, and easily drowned out by the all-encompassing need to do something important.

It was a shame, because that part of Joey might have questioned why his peaceful tolerant chant had such a genocidal undertone. That question might have led him to a chain of events that would lead to him and Melissa heading home and enjoying a wonderful night in together.

That chain of events would have kept them both human.

But instead of any of that, the two of them had a front-row seat to the sight of the egg-throwing woman explode. Or, to be more accurate, they had an excellent view of her clothes exploding. After all, cheap stitching was no match for a sudden eruption of soft, down-white feathers.

“Wha… Wha…” Joey stammered.

‘Wah-wah,” the woman stammered as if mocking him. Then she lifted her feathery head towards the sky. “WARK! WHA-KAW!”

Her fingers almost seems to stretch as the long feathers covering them grew longer still. She dropped down into her fuzzy boots as her legs suddenly shortened, almost in time with the sudden and violent growth of her torso.

Unbalanced, she fell onto her face. She crawled forward slowly, squawking all the while, dragging yellowed talons from her socks. An equally unseemly beak stretched past her lips, and she squawked out in horror again and again. “Buck-KAW! BWAAAK!”

“I… I didn’t get her name.” Joey gulped.

Melissa wrapped her hand around his comfortingly. “I think it was Libertee. With two E’s. Or… Three, I guess.”

The righteous outrage of the crowd had dulled to a stunned silence. It was quiet enough to hear an odd crackling through the air, like the sudden onset of frost across a large body of water. Or like dozens of eggs, reforming themselves one by one.

Joey gawped as the eggs Libertee had been throwing reformed, white shells encircling yolk that magically resolidified. Then, one by one, the eggs shot towards her, each forcing their way into her cloaca again and again.

“Bwuh-AAWWK! BWACKAW!!!” She flapped the tattered remains of her clothing off her, with enough force to actually take to the air. The last of the eggs followed her, shooting into her with the force of a cannonball and sending her straight into a tall woman’s.

“Sssh, that’s much better,” the woman’s accent had the musical lilt of Europe, and she calmed the panicked chicken with a few long, firm strokes.

“Better?” Melissa was the first to find her voice. “How is it better? In what world is she better as a chicken!?”

The new arrival tilted her head. “Why, this one, of course. But I’m in no mood to argue.”

With that, Melissa turned into a couch. Well, more of a bean bag chair. Joey watched with stunned eyes as the love of his life crumpled in on herself. Her skin took on a deep blue hue and the texture of thick fabric. Stitches bound her new body together, and she swelled, swelled, swelled with padding.

Joey was horrified. Sickened. His heart hammered in his chest, his face was flushed, his mouth was dry. He should be terrified of this. So why? Why did it feel like the first night they’d met?

“Oh? I see this must have been that one’s lover. Shh, don’t be afraid,” the woman beckoned Joey closer. “I am Ramelda.”

“Um. I’m Joey.” Joey kept darting his eyes from the woman’s pretty face to the soft, round, plush texture of his… Ex? He couldn’t truly call a bean bag chair his girlfriend, could he?

“Joey. That’s a cute name. So why would you do such an un-cute thing?” Ramelda’s voice took on a soft, almost patronizing tone. It was less like she was talking to a person, and more to a pet.

“Aren’t there supposed to be laws against magic use like this!?” One of the other protestors finally found their voice, only to wetly glurk as they were promptly turned into a squid. They splatted onto the ground, long tentacles flapping about. Then they vanished, with a faint pop of displaced air.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. I couldn’t just leave them on the pavement. They’ll be much happier in the ocean. Or… in a Japanese restaurant. I’m not quite sure, I was never the best at teleportation magic,” Ramelda casually discussed the impossible as though she was talking about a sporting game.

Joey dropped to his knees by the chair-ified Melissa, utterly at a loss. In retrospect, perhaps witches weren’t the best group to pick a fight with.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure she’s still in there. Or… Maybe that’s worse,” Ramelda hummed. “Either way, you never know. Perhaps true love’s first kiss might save her.”

Joey’s heart hammered in his chest as he pressed against the chair. She was soft. Dense. Squishy, even. Something about her made him feel warm all over. He rubbed his cheek against her-against it, wondering why she felt so good.

A few uneasy murmurs from the crowd made him realize that people were staring, and he quickly kissed the chair, cheeks burning. That didn’t seem to do anything, so he decided to make an educated guess. Ramelda’s accent sounded a little French, maybe (it was hard to tell, all European accents sounded the same to those above racism). Maybe a French kiss?

He pressed his tongue against the cloth, feeling it suck away some of the moisture from his tongue. Somehow, his mouth didn’t get any dryer, even though a growing damp spot was forming on the cloth. What started as an attempt at a kiss soon devolved into a messy, sloppy lick, drool trickling down Joey’s cheeks.

“See, I’m sure there’s some who might object to you playing with the furniture, but I’m above those concerns. I mean, at worst, I can always just make a new one,” Ramelda turned her eye to the crowd with small smirk.

Instead of running, cowering, or any terrified response, they chuckled a little, a bit uneasily. Joey didn’t know why, and he started to wiggle his hips apprehensively, still on his knees, chest pressed against Melissa’s plush body as he licked her again and again. Licked it again and again.

Weird, why did he keep doing that? He knew she was a-it was a chair. But it didn’t smell like a chair. It smelled like something else…

Joey pressed his nose against the chair, rubbing his face against the puddle of his own drool. The tip of his nose started to feel wetter the more he sniffed, but that made him feel tingly in the best of ways so he didn’t mind. Also, somehow the wetter his nose felt, the better he was able to smell the chair.

It reminded him of the feeling he’d get when he smelled the fruity conditioner Melissa would always use, only this scent didn’t have that same sweetness. It was almost a bit muskier, thicker. Like a dog that had just come in on a rainy day, coupled with the humidity of a dog’s breath.

A shiver passed down his spine, and Joey shook his curly hair. It almost felt like there was more of it than he was used to, like his hair had crept down his neck and his cheeks. It made him feel hot, thermally this time. It was like he’d wrapped himself in a thick blanket of hair.

But no matter how hot he got, his body wasn’t sweating. His skin felt chalky and dry, even though he was burning up. It took a tremendous force of effort to pull his head back from Melissa’s plush body, and he greedily sucked in a breath of cool air.

He sucked it in, and his chest cramped. “Huulgh!” He gasped, eyes watering. Paradoxically, inhaling had stolen the air from his lungs, making him suck in a deeper breath, and a deeper one after that. Each time, his torso felt like it was stretching, barreling out. His arms and legs didn’t feel right at their usual angle, so he tucked them in a little closer to his body.

The moment he did, four loud pops from his shoulders and hips dropped him back down onto Melissa’s plush body.

“This protest’s really going to the dogs!” One of the protestors laughed nervously. He flinched as Ramelda turned her gaze towards him. Then she smiled.

“Very good! See, a sense of humor like that will get you much farther in life than any…” She waved her hand at Joey, and he felt a breeze kiss his body. “Sensitivity.”

His clothes had vanished, but he didn’t feel naked. If anything, he felt hairer than ever. At the same time, she’d done something to him. He was more sensitive than ever. He gasped at the amazingly soft sensation of Melissa’s body against his belly.

Ramelda must have known that she was doing something to him, because she trailed her fingers from the back of Joey’s neck to the base of his spine. Pressure started to build in his tailbone, greater and greater as he was pet like an animal. Like a dog.

“Buh… Uh duhn wannuh be duhwgl…” Juey hadn’t noticed how big his tongue had gotten, or how his skull has slightly sloped. Apparently his new sense of smell had come at the expense of some of the language center of his brain.

A few more protestors laughed, except for another walking stereotype. “How can y’all possibly find this funny?” She screeched. “Don’t y’all see what that Nazi is doing to him!?”

“My family were gypsies,” Ramelda tutted.

“Oh great! Even worse, she’s one of them immigrants!”

For once, Ramelda seemed at a loss for words. Eventually, she settled on flicking her fingers in the woman’s direction. “Clearly nothing I can say or do will change your mind, so we’ll just have to reeducate you.”

“Oh my God, mom!” A nearby girl wailed.

“Excellent! That makes this much easier.” Ramelda hummed.

Whatever she was implying was lost on Joey as he kept pressing up against the soft beanbag chair. It – she felt so soft, so warm. And his body felt so good… He didn’t even realize that his hips had started to move, grinding up against the soft, plush chair.

The older woman’s grating voice got a bit softer as she started to shrink, wrinkles fading from her skin as normal fat turned into baby fat. At the same time, her daughter shuddered as her buzz cut started to grow into a side part and outdated bangs.

Joes watched, transfixed, as the two somehow swapped ages. Something about that made him feel even warmer, and he panted louder, humping the chair harder, rubbing his cheek against her. It couldn’t be that he liked watching this happen, that would be… What would it be?

He had thought it would be bad, but… He shook his head to clear his thoughts. All that did for him was stretch out his ears, making them heavy and floppy. They thumped against Joey’s cheeks, and he growled a little in annoyance.

“Wha… What was I so mad about?” The suddenly-younger girl wobbled, pressing a hand against her head. “Uh…”

“Clearly it’s that rutting MUTT!” Her new mother snarled. The woman flicked her head to clear some of the Karen-cut from her eyes. “This is public property, and is no place for such indecency.”

Mutt? Jueys crinkled his nose. Was she… Talking about him? He wasn’t a mutt, he was a person named Jo… Ju… Something…

The world got very confusing for a moment, swirling like paint in a blender. When it re-settled, he was in a house’s living room, thankfully still atop his humptoy-girlfriend. His girlfriend. Though it looked like Ramelda and everyone else had come along too.

“Is this better?” The witch rolled her eyes.

“How did we… When did we get in a house?”

House! That was the word for where they were. Jubbey happily panted, wagging his butt harder, trying to relieve some of the pressure in his tailbone. For some reason, wagging didn’t help the pressure as much as humping, so he thrust his hips intently towards the stuffed chair.

It was like a bubble bursting, and a thick, curly-furred tail burst from his backside. His eyes crossed, and he howled dumbly and happily as his new tail was finally freed from the confines of his humanity.

“This isn’t just any house. It’s your house. For you, your daughter, and your labradoodle. Or… Maybe a labradumble. He’s not the brightest.”

Bubbey felt that he should be offended by that. But he didn’t know why, and couldn’t focus on that. Not when humping her felt so good. He loved his fat plush stuffed whatever-she-was. Teddymate. That was a good name for her. He wagged a bit harder as he ground his hips against her a little more insistently.

“He… Ahm… Looks a bit weird with hands, don’t you think?” Karen-cut crinkled her nose.

“Everyone’s a critic,” Ramelda rolled her eyes, bending down and scritching the dog at the base of his neck. “Though I can tell you want paws, don’t you Bubbles? Big, heavy, stupid, useless paws?”

Bubbles! He was named Bubbles! “Hhuuhwwhrruff! Woof!” Bubbles wagged his tail like crazy to thank the nice lady, humping Teddymate a bit more. His paws felt a little bit weird for a moment, as their long not-paw things properly swelled up, forming cute little claws and thick, dense paws.

“There. Now that the ringleaders of this little protest have been taken care of, the rest of you can find your way home.” Ramelda smiled. She waved her hand and vanished on the spot, leaving the gathered crowd to mutter and mumble about what she meant by that.

Some of them would soon come to the awkward realization that they’d all just been teleported across the continent. But those thoughts and concerns were much too complex for Bubbles, whose new dumb labradoodle brain was much too fixated on staining his Teddymate more and more with his love, not once remembering she was once a person who’d loved him back.