After a mediocre week working at the local conservation museum, Nora was eager to just chill out and relax. And to start the weekend off, what better way than to invite her best friend, Clarice, over for a fun evening together playing games, watching movies, or talking about recent events. A cool evening breeze came in through the living room window as Nora waited for her to arrive at the time they agreed upon the previous day. The Rakwahan woman wore her simple blue jean vest, left open but managing to cover her sensitive areas while leaving the rest of her brown furry body free and unrestricted. Her dark brown eyes darted at the clock, her four-toed feet patting the living room carpet as she sat on the grey couch in anticipation.

The doorbell rang, spurring the canine girl to spring up from her spot and sprint to the door, swinging it open to reveal her long haired, redhead best friend, who wore a blue long-sleeved shirt, blue jeeans, and green sandals.

"About time you got here!" exclaimed Nora. "Busy with traffic?"

"Yeah, ha ha," Clarice chuckled as she slid into the house, slipping her sandals off. "Everyone going to the bar and all that jazz. Even a cop car went racing by at one point."

"Oh woah! Already needing to break up a fight?" Nora asked whimsically, wondering just what the local police would be doing so early on a Friday night.

Clarice shrugged as she strode over into the living room alongside Nora. "That'd be pretty crazy. Or," she paused, "it's about those sightings of... what were they called?"

Nora pursed her lips, her eyes looking to the side as her mind pursued an answer to Clarice's question. "Something to do with spirits I think," she said, before snapping her fingers, "Elemental spirits, that's it."

"Yeah! You're parents went to that one town meeting tonight regarding them, right?"

Nora nodded. "Eeyup! Got the house to ourselves to do just about anything we want."

"Would that be why you ain't wearing any pants?" Clarice asked as her eyes wandered down to her friend's lower half. Indeed, while Nora wore a jean vest, there was nothing covering her legs and groin. Just the fine layer of brown fur that covered her body.

Nora's mouth curled up into a smile as she rolled her eyes. "Yeeesss," she sheepishly replied. "Hope that's okay with ya."

"Well, let's just say hope you don't greet all your friends like that. Otherwise," Clarice grabbed Nora's nose-ring and tugged her closer, "I might get jealous." After a beat, she freed Nora, who twitched her nose around as if to make sure it was still okay. Walking in front of the couch Nora was sitting on a few minutes ago, she crashed onto it with a loud, "Omph! Always liked this couch. Feels a lot nicer than ours."

"That's cuz you're probably used to yours, ya goof," Nora chided as she loomed over the back of the couch. "Not like yours is much different. Anywho, you want a drink?"

"Tomato juice?"

Nora shook her head. "Nah, you drank the last of it last time, and mom kept forgetting to get more, since you're the only one who drinks it."

"Awww, darn! Why don't you remember and get more? Or you too busy looking at all the chocolate bars?"

"Nooo!" Nora retorted, crossing her arms. "I'm... focused on making sure the apples we select are of good condition!"

Clarice rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Just water is fine."

Nora walked off to the kitchen to grab the two of them glasses of water, and soon returned, handing it down to her chilling friend. "Want to chill here, or move up to the bedroom? Maybe read up on those spirit things that are seemingly popping up."

"Sure thing," Clarice said as she hopped off the couch and followed Nora over to the stairs just around the corner and made their way up to Nora's bedroom at the end of the short upstairs hallway. Nora nudged the door open to reveal a green coloured room with an off-white carpet floor. Much like the couch, Clarice zoomed over to Nora's bed on their left and threw herself upon it, arms stretched open as she made herself comfortable. Nora stood there and shook her head.

"You sure like claiming the place for yourself, huh?" Nora noted, quite aware of Clarice's tendency to do this in the past. Clarice mearly smiled and winked back, spurring an amiable sigh out of Nora as she walked over to her computer, waking it up with a shake of the mouse as she sat down.

"You ever seen any of them?" Clarice asked.

"Any of what?" Nora replied, wondering why Clarice was playing the pronoun game.

"Elemental spirits. Gnomes, salamanders, slyphs, undines. All those critters."

"Oh heck no," Nora scoffed, shaking her head, "Not like those things are common occurances. They only appear in like, really dire situations or something."

Clarice rolled over on the bed so her vision of Nora and the rest of the room wasn't upside down. "Right right. My mom thinks she may have met an undine once."

Nora briefly took her eyes off the computer screen to look at Clarice. "Would that be why her boobs are so big?" she inquired with a smug look on her face as if she was correct.

"Yeaaah," Clarice giggled, "during one of our camping trips she ran into one and then POOMF!" Clarice motioned an explosion with her hands, "Now she's the reason why brother gets embarrassed during parent teacher interviews, or anything for that matter."

Nora nodded her head as she opened up her web browser, "Right, he's not happy with her being so big, or you being, well, kinky."

Clarice smirked as she looked off in a random direction. "Yeah, that'd be-"

"Oh woah."

"What?"

Nora stared at her computer screen for a few seconds, before she replied. "Nothing on the spirits yet, but according to this news site, apparently there's some more weird stuff happening over in Idallen! Seriously, come here and take a look at this."

"Eh?" Clarice hopped off the bed and strode over to Nora, bending over to look at the screen. "Holy! What is that?"

Nora's eyes scanned over the text accompanying the picture. "Apparently that was one of the local lawyers. And now, she's... really big, I can say that!"

"Tell me about it. Wait, that's a she?"

Nora looked at Clarice, her eyes expressing disbelief as well, and nodded. "Eeyup! And now," Nora turned back to the picture, "she's... well, definitely not a she anymore. From the sounds of it, this Society of Bliss has been going around and 'helping' people out in the city."

"By what, turning them into big pink dragons?" Clarice said before bursting out into a short laugh.

Nora just shook her head. "There's probably more to this, but, damn, that's really weird. And I thought your mom's boobs were odd."

Clarice bumped Nora's shoulder with the back of her hand. "Hey! At least she doesn't have six tits like yours does."

Nora spun around and stared at Clarice. "Those are natural, ya doof! I have them too!"

"Yeah, well, your lower ones are still flat like pancakes," Clarice teased. "Ya got a long ways to go before you're grown up."

It was Nora's turn to strike Clarice, swiping at her belly with her left arm.

"Ooooh hoo..." Clarice recoiled from the mild discomfort, making it up to have hurt more than it should, even falling onto the floor. Nora just shook her head and swiveled around back to face her computer.

"Hope it doesn't start getting weird like this here."

"It doesn't look too bad," Clarice said as she stood up. "I mean, if they're helping them recover from that whole event that happened over there, that's pretty cool."

Nora shook her head, unsure of what to make of this. "I guess, but it still is pretty strange," she said, as she remembered mentions of that particular event, and what had occurred. "This kinda sounds like that, just... I guess not forceful."

"Don't let it bother you too much, I'm sure this Society means well with what they do," said Clarice as she sat on the edge of Nora's bed. "Tell you what, why don't we take your mind off it and go play a game. Maybe some Platinum Angel action? That might perk ya up.

Nora nodded her head side-to-side. It was one of her favourite hack-and-slash games, and was loads of fun to play. "Sure, let's play that."

With that, Clarice hopped off the bed. "Sweet! See ya downstairs!" she said as she ran out of the room.

"Hey, wait up!" cried Nora, shaking her head with a smile as she chased after Clarice.

*****

After a slow and late morning after an evening of playing Platinum Angel, the two women enjoyed a simple breakfast of toast before Clarice headed out. As much fun as Nora had with her, there was one thing that was still on her mind from the previous night. She sat in front of her computer, much like last night, looking at her screen. Glowing from it was that same news article regarding that transformed lawyer. She tried to keep Clarice's comment in mind and believe that the Society of Bliss was doing good things in that city. Still, her mind was nagged by a growing want to look into it further. Or rather, what lead to this happening.

The event that took the city by storm.

Her heart beating hard, almost as audible as the floor vent blowing in fresh, cool air into her room, Nora hesitantly typed in "Flesh Sculptor" into her search engine.

She averted her eyes from the few images that appeared at the top of the page, scrolling down immediately to see what links there were. It didn't take long for her to find something that caught her attention: a blog. Lucy's Life Letters. From the looks of it, it was regarding her experience of the whole ordeal.

Nora clicked on the link.

---

What started out as a fun little picture of Nora being shocked at something on the computer has now turned into a prologue chapter leading into something much grander! Originally it was going to be its own thing, and then it became a leadup to the main story in my universe. But then as I was considering how else to approach the remake of Flesh Sculptor regarding it as a sort of blog series, this picture became the perfect tool to lead into that.

And so, Nora's journey begins, as she reads about Lucy's experience involving the mysterious individual, to whom the citizens of Idallen know only as, the Flesh Sculptor!!!

Or it could be just a picture of Nora looking at something shocking on her computer. Here for the pic, or the story too? Whatever ya feel~