The farmhouse sitting well off the country road didn't particularly stand out; the town was a registered historical district and so all of the buildings around were old and maintained original features. What Remi liked most about the property was the abundance of things littering the yard and peeking out from the barn. There were piles of old lumber, scraps of machinery, spare windows, wrought iron balusters, shipping palettes and crates, shutters, wooden barrels, even an old overturned clawfoot tub. Just the kind of place that promised some interesting finds for her.

Her uncle and aunt lived a mile away on the other side of town and had asked Remi to help fix up a second building they had on their land. As she was in an interior design program and looking for something to put in her portfolio, she took up the offer and moved from the city suburbs to the mountain boonies for the summer. She thought the most appropriate aesthetic to go for would be rustic with an industrial modernity, getting the effect using salvaged pieces. The more local, the better, she had thought, and took off on foot to meet the neighbors.

The dirt and gravel of the farm's drive crunched underfoot as she walked up to the farmhouse. Large oak trees were shedding leaves in the autumn breeze and there was a hint of winter on the crisp air. Remi pulled the fleece she had on tighter around her middle and wrapped her arms together to keep warm. This might be her last stop for the afternoon.

She was about to walk up the front steps when she noticed someone moving around in the barn and she perked up a little seeing it was a man about her age. Sure, older people were fine to speak with, but they typically had more knowledge and emotional attachment when it came to bartering, and therefore expected more money when Remi made offers, while most younger people didn't have an eye or appreciation for antique goods. There was a bit of a bounce in her step when she made for her new target.

“Hi,” Remi called out, speaking cheerfully and hoping to give the man a bit of warning before she barged in on him. As she reached the open barn doors, “excuse me, sir?”
“Not interested!”

She heard him but he was in the back of the packed space (full of wonderful things like old cupboards, hunting decoys, sleds, lanterns, picture frames, mirrors, steamer trunks and oooh was that a perfectly sized vanity for the bathroom she wanted to do?), and Remi couldn't quite see him.

“Hi,” she repeated. ”And no, I'm not here to sell anything. Actually, my name is Remi.”

“No thanks, I'm all set on the religious front, too,” he said. There was noise of something heavy dragging across stone and she could see the top of a wardrobe moving. Was that swirly maple? Nice.

Remi eased around the treasures of her new found goldmine until she could swing around the wardrobe to face the stranger.

“So,” she chirped, “would you like some help then? I'm in the market for furniture.”

Her smile softened as she looked him. He was cute. Bright eyes, dark hair in loose waves, a lean build, skin a little warm from a leftover summer sunburns. Taller than her, too, but just the right reach for a tiptoed kiss...

Remi straightened her posture, business again.

“Looking to sell anything?” She persisted, letting a little more teasing into her voice.

It probably wasn't so much because it was her that did it, but the fact he was talking to anyone new in this town and his age at that, but the young man blushed and went shy as Remi stood there in front of him. Sure, she might admit she was pretty enough for some, if not buxom in any way, but she could draw stares and had even once or twice managed to charm a man. (Of course, they usually lost interest because she had a damned independent streak in her that couldn't be smothered for the sake of romance). Still, his curious scan of her body and his blush made her own cheeks hot and her chest swell with some hopeful confidence.

“Um, hey,” he finally said. She watched him swallow.

“Remi. And you're..?”
“Lian,” from a drying throat. He had a nice texture to his voice.

“Liam.”

“Lian. From Julian.”

“Oh, cool. Sorry. It's nice to meet you.” Remi held her hand out to shake his and he tentatively returned the movement, his grip gentle in compared to hers.

Touching her seemed to shake him from the shy spell over him.

“Shoot,” she heard him mutter, which was cute because who censored words like that anymore, and then Lian was directing her away, hovering his hands over her shoulders to turn her around and back for the doors. He said, “okay. Yeah, you've gotta go. Now.”

Well. That wasn't what she expected.

“What? No, wait, I'm serious. I walked here today, but I have a truck so you won't have to move anything yourself.” Even while he ushered her out, Remi looked, dismayed, at more items. “Oh, hey, are you all using that slate slab over there?”

Lian laughed under his breath, crossed between amused and bewildered by her insistence. “Seriously, I'm just learning ‘helping out' around here. I can't sell you anything and I don't think anything in here has any good kind of vibe, you get me? You should really go.”

Remi dipped under his arms, out from the soft steering, and pivoted to face Lian. “Who's stuff is it? I can pay in cash. Is the owner around?”
Lian made a nervous, furtive glance aside. Low and barely audible, “I don't think these owners are around...”

She narrowed her eyes and let her head incline more to one side. “Well...what if,”

His hands landed on her shoulder and she felt the rough skin on his thumbs on her collar bones but he was ever light in his intrusion. “Remi, listen. Nope, don't look at the light fixtures, pay attention. You need to leave.”

“You have literal bins of hardware over there, too...”

“Julian!”

At the sound of the new voice in the barn, both Remi and Lian went still. A short intake from Lian mirrored her own. She felt down her spine a cool tingle that inspired the little hairs on her skin to stand on end. Turning to look over her shoulder, she blinked at the older man backlit in the doorway.

“Good afternoon, sir,” Remi said, turning on her 'let's talk discounts' enthusiasm. “I was-“

“Shut it, girl, I'm not talking to you.”

Remi's words stopped on her lips and she closed her mouth. The cool tingle turned into an icy shot down her middle. She looked to Lian, tried to ask what the hell was going on and managed only a little whimper.
“I knew you would eventually slack off, I knew it.” The old man pulled the work gloves from his hands as he walked into the barn. His stride was easy, hinted at powerful, but also tired. Tired and annoyed.

“Arch, please. I'm sorry. She’s just a neighbor”
“Don't lie to me. You think I can't manage to know the thirty four residents in this village?”

“Okay, a guest, maybe,”

Remi followed the conversation but was more intent on trying to get her voice back. She worked her mouth and found she couldn't make a noise.

The old man wasn't paying her any attention, ranting to Lian.

“You couldn't go a few months without sniffing out some yapping distraction,”the man bemoaned. “Work ethic? Should have sworn you off the moment I heard that 'buzzword' phrasing. No decent apprentices anywhere these days...”

First of all: Remi did not 'yap.' That was sort of a sexist comment to make. She was on mute, though, and so her raised finger as interjection to such a biased point was underwhelming.

But the old man, 'Arch,' noticed and he gave her a suspicious, insulted look. “You'll raise your paw when I tell you.”

“Arch... please,” again from Lian.

He went ignored.

“Sit, girl,” Arch said, and strangely, he was speaking to Remi.

She might have made an indignant sound had she been able, because while she was internally scoffing at being told to 'sit' like she were a dog, Remi felt a tug on the tail of her spine and dropped suddenly to the ground as if pulled there. Her legs bent under her so that she crouched awkwardly balancing on the pads of her feet, arms tucked above her thighs, and that was how she stayed. She felt her face fluctuate between red mortification and paling white dread. Her mind raced a constant stream of questions and curses.

“You wanted me to show you some real magic, wasn't it, Julian?” Arch waved a hand to Remi, but his eyes had moved to the younger man, who appeared almost ill and started to shake his head. “No, no. I remember you were so despondent just yesterday. You want to see some of the 'interesting' spells.”

“I can wait.”

Remi heard the two speaking but they were distant. Magic and spells, she had heard, though, and while logic told her 'not at all possible,' the fact she had no will to move or speak told her, 'okay, sure, makes sense.'

Horrible, horrible sense.

“You can watch,” Arch insisted. Concentration back on Remi he murmured,”something to match that honey spun hair of hers, I think.”

'Honey spun,' had a lovely ring to it and she was for a split second humbled by the compliment. And then she started to feel uncomfortably warm. Her body went tense and Remi wanted to stretch and pull off her fleece and rub at her skin because it was starting to itch something wicked. She was too hot, definitely. Licking at her lips made her tongue feel weird and too heavy, longer, and for some reason she only felt relief when she started breathing heavily. Panting, really.

“Take off the clothing, girl, it'll just get in the way.”

Remi protested internally but she moved to yank off her fleece and shirt. Her arms were tight in an unusual way and her fingers were becoming stiff. 'What the hell is happening,' kept going through her mind. She panted more and tasted dust, rotting leaves, the fields from across the way. Breathing through her nose was a wash of scents she had never before appreciated so intensely.

She could smell herself.

Shirt off over her head and the material was much looser around her than she remembered from that morning. Remi looked down of her thinning arms, past to where she was almost needlessly covering her chest. Needless because it was also rapidly losing mass and was darkening in a natural coverage of its own.

'Oh,' she thought, staring down at what could only be fur sprouting up in a golden bloom across her body. Remi was growing in a coat of fur. As she watched it spread, she felt others things happening to her, too. More pulling at her face and her ears that begged a nice rub to ease away the discomfort. And, oh, her back, too. She had to dip her back and stretch into a C because there was something simultaneously taut and lengthening at the bottom of her spine.

Remi couldn't balance in her crouching any longer. Her legs were changing under her seat and she needed to fall forward onto her arms, to let them stand in a new position. A position more suitable for walking like a...

A dog.

The room and her surroundings and the two men standing above her seemed to rush back into focus as what was going on sunk into her like a jolting hook. Remi tried to cry out, couldn't, and noiselessly whined at her company in fear and confusion and many other things. Her tongue lolled out her mouth as she moaned and then, in something of an instinctual fashion, she licked again at her lips and found she hit her nose too easily. Her nose that was so far out in front of her face and above an aching and long muzzle. Her muzzle, wetter now and open in a constant need for cooling air.

Another invisible 'tugging' and Remi dropped forward onto her long palms and short fingers, stiff with pads and ending in curling, dark claws. It was easier to put weight onto her arms than it should have been, felt more natural to use them more like front legs so that she could free her hind legs from the confines of her jeans, her satin soft panties, and boots. Kicking out her feet, longer and narrower now, did it for her wool socks.

“That a girl. How's that feel?”

Remi blinked up at Arch. Saw him flicker in her vision before she lost her regular color spectrum. She tried again to speak, got out a few drawn syllables of something indiscernible and heavy on the 'r's. Short bursts of noise was easier and she actually barked at the man. Hearing herself, Remi winced and felt her ears flatten in shame. That long, swishing part of her spine “ a tail“ also dipped under her.

Because that was the sort of body language dogs used.

“You didn't have to do that to her just to make a point to me...” Lian said and he was miserable in looks and smell. Guilt and sadness and a little bit of panic.

Arch snorted. “That wasn't for you... This is for you.”

For as long as it took the change for Remi, it seemed to go so much faster for Lian. She ducked down and watched him, horrified and amazed at once, as he contorted and shrunk, lengthened and stretched. His dark hair became a long, black coat of fur.

Lian talked through his transformation.

“Arch! Arch, purr...ree...” and other equally helpless and less comprehensible things. Until he was just as incapable of speech as she.

“You wanted a distraction, so enjoy it boy.” Arch was tired and he fell back into an old seat “a beautiful armed chippendale with original upholstery if not with some wear and tear“ and waved at the two of them. “You'll be working for me in this form, too. But for the moment...”

“ I can't believe this,” Lian said, eying the old man with petulance, and Remi perked up, happy to understand his communication. And then immediately dropped her ears again when Lian whined at her, “I 'told' you to leave! You should have listened when I told you…”

Remi tuned him out and instead wondered at the new scent tantalizing her. Her tail started again its wagging and she stared at Lian. For a dog...under his new nice coat, his lean, strong body had sort of translated nicely to its new form.

“You know, you smell super nice. Just saying,” she told him. Curious she moved a little closer, let her nose lead the way as she started inspecting him. It wasn't quite the same flighty image of how they had been the perfect height for sharing a kiss that she had dreamed up earlier, but now Remi was seeing different ways in which they could fit together nicely.

“...stuck like this for who knows how long and wait, what? Are you paying any attention? Remi? Are you... where are you going like... Oh. Oh..”

Reupload of Moonsting Story