Lessons learned

by Timefox

Derick deLyons was the youngest son of Duke Gabriel deLyons, the protector of the king's forest preserve. While the duke was kind man, and had a high respect of the wood and its creatures, his son was far from it. The duke spent a great deal of time watching over the wood and teaching his children the proper ways to survive in it and respect it. The only ears his words fell deaf upon were Derick's. The youth was cold hearted and cruel to animals, delighting in hunting just for the pleasure of killing. His father often warned him of the consequences of his actions but he never listened to the old man.

One particularly fine summers day, Derick had the servants saddle his horse as he prepared for a hunting trip. There were rumors of a fox roaming close to the manor house and prowling especially near the chicken coop. Derick's mind was intent on capturing it and turning it into another trophy. Duke Gabriel pleaded with his son not to go but he laughed at the foolishness of the old man, spurring his horse and riding into the wood. Before the duke returned to the house he muttered under his breath after his son, "If I cannot make you listen and learn, then maybe the Warden can." And with that, the duke turned and strode into the house.

Derick rode for an hour with no signs of the offending fox. Then, as the sun began to set, he caught sight of a movement in the brush. He notched his crossbow and fired an arrow into the bushes, sending the concealed fox within bolting out and heading deeper into the forest. The chase was on! Derick spurred his horse and was off after his prize. He chased the fox through all manner of brush and other obstacles, firing his crossbow at the rust-colored target. Finally one of Derick's remaining arrows found their mark, crippling the fairly large red fox. The young lord dismounted and strode victoriously to where the injured creature lie. With a swift fluid motion, he drew his knife and delivered the killing stroke.

As soon as he pulled the knife from the corpse, he heard a sound by his horse. He spun to see the visage of a young woman holding the reins of his mount. Derick rose from his crouch, holding his knife before him. She smiled at him, her face tanned from the sun slightly yet fair all the same. The woman before him was fairly attractive, her appearance and clothing were reminiscent of the elven races that guarded the forests long ago. Her eyes went from the carcass of the fox he had just killed and then to his face, seeming to bore into him. "Why have you trespassed in my woods and taken the life of one of its creatures?" She demanded in a steely voice.

The young lord was about to answer when she let go of the reins and smacked his horse's rump, sending it running back to the manor house and his father's stable. Derick looked at her in disbelief, "What did you do that for?! Now I'll have to drag that fox's body with my bare hands, and it will be nightfall by the time I get home!" She frowned at him, "I don't believe you'll be taking that body anywhere milord." He turned and looked at where the fox had been lying just a few short moments ago. It was gone now, not even its blood stained the ground. He was about to question it when he realized the knife he had been holding was gone as well. In fact, all of his possessions save his clothes were gone!

"You won't be needing those anymore, now I will give you one last chance to explain child." She demanded of him the same questions. "My father is the owner of these woods, Duke deLyons, and I came here to hunt that fox. It is within my right! You have no reason to hold me here witch!" She chuckled at him, "So you're the brat whom the duke's teachings have not reached. I've heard of you, quite the hunter. A shame those talents aren't used for good, no, you waste them for cruel sport. We'll see how well you fare when you hunt to provide for someone. And I am no witch, but the forest grants me the power to punish little welps like you."

"When you're hunting not only to feed your own mouth but the mouths of others maybe you'll see how valuable life is. When you're a part of the natural food chain perhaps you will learn your lesson. I believe the forest will find something fitting to do to you. I am merely an emissary of the wood. What the wood wills, I do. And the wood wishes me to teach you to respect the creatures you hunt. Your judgment has come Derick deLyons, prepare yourself for the sentence." The woman said and she pointed a finger at him. The wind blew through her hair and rustled the trees before finally stopping.

Derick laughed and was about to mock the woman further when he noticed a sharp pain in his boots. He quickly sat on a nearby fallen log and pulled them off, sighing in relief as he saw nothing was wrong. Then he gasped in astonishment as he watched the transformation she had cryptically described begin. His small toe shrank until it vanished into his foot while his middle two remaining toes lengthened. In the end, his toes evened out in a way so his foot looked like a dog's paw save for the fur. His nails lengthened and curved into blunt canine claws and fur began to sprout sporadically.

The youth looked at the woman and with terror in his eyes, managed to squeak out, "What are you doing to me?" She said nothing but only smiled as the change progressed. His other foot followed and the process seemed to stop after both feet were more akin to paws than human feet. Derik sighed in relief then suddenly yelped while in one quick motion, his feet lengthened and his bones readjusted as his knees reversed to suit a now digitigrade posture. He frantically tore his breeches away, watching helplessly as the black fur spread up to his calves and stopped as reddish-orange fur began to cover the rest of his legs.

The fur of his inner thighs turned a whitish-tan color and began to spread up to his stomach. He continued to stare as his genitals underwent the change. The sac which supported his testicles sprouted a finer pelt than the rest of him. The foreskin of his penis attached itself to his stomach, drawing the organ with it and forming a sheath, finely furred and the same off-white color as his balls. Watching the forced transformation of his male equipment caused his now more canine penis to slide from the newly formed sheath in slight arousal. His hands went to touch the swelling organ as if to assure himself it was real, then came a stabbing pain in his backside. His hands reached around to the space above his ass, feeling around the newly grown tail which had broken past his flesh.

He held the rapidly growing extremity in his hands as it lengthened and sprouted the same rust coloured fur as the rest of his body, the tip turning shades of black and white. He found that with little effort he could cause it to twitch. The fur crept its way up his stomach and chest as the woman watched silently. Derick noticed that his tone was improving, newly developed muscles rippling beneath the glossy coat of fur. He was almost enjoying it. His arms furred over as well, turning black to glove his forearms. His hands developed the same blunt claws as his feet, the little fingers shrank into his hands and his palms grew leathery black pads. As he examined the paws his hands had become, his chest was quickly being covered in white fur. Then the process proceeded to move up his neck.

With a blaze of red hot pain and an audible crack, his face pushed forward into a sharp pointed muzzle. As Derick's vision became colorless, he crossed his eyes to look at the nose before his eyes. It then became apparent what he was becoming. A fox. A human-like fox. His ears moved to the top of his head, tipped in black fur and he became aware of new sounds all around him. His mind exploded as a vast array of new smells greeted his nose. So this was the woman's punishment for his hunting, to live both as the species he was, and the species he had killed. The transformation completed itself swiftly and the woman stepped forward now, smiling at what her handiwork had wrought.

"So Derick...now you see what I meant by my words. The fox you killed was able to take this shape, but was in full fox form to escape you. Maybe in a few years, you too will be able to take full fox form."

Derick flushed under his new fur, surprised as his ears flattened and he snarled, "What do you mean in a few years?! How long do you intend to keep me like this you...you...witch!"

The woman smiled and spoke with the same steady tone, seemingly unworried by his anger. "Well...I am certainly not a witch. I am the Warden, and you are merely paying the price for trespassing in my woods and for murdering one its inhabitants for fun. The creature you killed had a family, a mate, and offspring. They have no one to provide for them now, that is until you came along. Do you get what I'm pointing towards?"

Derick's eyes widened, "You want me to be a father and husband to a bunch of fox-people?! You must be mad!" He tried to argue but his protests fell on deaf ears. The Warden procured a new set of clothes whixh she told him would better fit his newfound anatomy and tossed them to him, "You are now of the morphic race. If I were you I wouldn't try to return to human society nor would I try to let anyone know you were once human. Folks around here don't like that. As I said, with time a few of the natural magical abilities of the morphs may manifest in you if the forest sees fit. Yes, there are others out there like you are now, not all foxes but various creatures of the wood."

"You'll be needing these clothes I think. Fur is fine in some cases, but this is not one of them. You need to learn how precious life is. Maybe when your job is no longer killing it but rather trying to preserve it you will see more clearly. Now come along, you're true punishment awaits." And with that, the Warden waved her hand, and soon Derick found himself transported to the entrance of a tunnel leading underground. He also found himself fully dressed in the clothes he had been holding not a moment before. "Selene!" The Warden called into the den, and to Derick's surprise a young fox-woman looking much like himself strolled out of the den.

She looked Derick over and smiled, exchanging hugs with the Warden, "Oh, hello Warden, I just put the little ones down for their nap. How are you and who's this charming little fellow you've brought with you?" The Warden and Selene exchanged small talk for a while as he listened, he caught the kits' names as Phoebe and James, then the talk turned towards the fox he had killed. The warden explained his death and to his surprise, Selene merely shook her head instead of crying over her fallen mate.

The fox-lady sighed, "Sam, that damned fool, I told him to beware of that bastard child of the duke but he wouldn't hear of it. That child is evil, not like the duke who has always been kind to all of us here in the wood. I remember him coming when James was born, watching over and helping with the birth, never have I met a kinder human. I think every one of us has at least one child whom he is the godfather of. I can only pray to the gods that one day that child becomes like his father." She absently brushed a tear away from her eye.

As Derick listened, he felt a pang of guilt for being such a cruel man and hunting without any regard for the creatures of the wood. He marveled at how the Warden's punishment was so suitable, putting him in his kill's place to make him learn his lesson. The Warden nodded at Selene and pushed Derick a little closer to her, "Selene, this is Serin, he'll be helping you out now that Sam is gone. Just pay him mind if he gets out of line. He's new and doing service to me so I may come fetch him in a few years if he wishes to go." Derick smiled nervously as Selene looked him over, oddly enough, staring at her was getting him faintly aroused. She was very attractive for a fox and as he watched her he felt his sheath fill and his penis begin to slide slowly from its protective flesh.

The Warden smiled and proclaimed she thought he would fit right in, and without another word, she was gone. Selene waved to her friend just before she vanished and then nudged him towards the opening to the den, "Well, let's not just stand out here all 'eve, come inside Serin and I'll get you acquainted with your new home." Still a bit nervous, he walked down the descending dirt slope and into a spacious subterranean cavern. It was a cozy little place, candle lit, pictures hanging on the stone and dirt walls. It had a faintly musky smell to it but was otherwise quite pretty for a hole in the ground. Selene showed him around the kitchen, sitting room, quietly showed the bedroom where the kits slept, the master bedroom, and back into the sitting room again.

Selene sat and poured him a cup of tea, handing it to him as he politely thanked her. They talked for about an hour, he made up a small story to fit his origin and how he knew the Warden which he hoped wouldn't make her suspect anything out of the ordinary. She got up after a few minutes of talking and sat next to him on the small couch, snuggling into him. He put an arm around her, his fingers stroking through the fur of her arm as she let out a small sigh. She looked up at him and smiled, "I'm glad the Warden brought you here Serin, without Sam to hunt for us, the little ones and I would have gone hungry." She pressed harder against him and let out a small murrr, "Also, mating season has just begun and I don't see how I could have borne another kit without a mate..." He suddenly arched his back with both surprise and a sort of terrified pleasure as she began stroking his sheath through the clothing the Warden had provided.

The pair petted one another for several minutes, Derick marveled at how soft her fur was and wondered if his was the same. Selene arose after a while and taking his hand, led him to the master bedroom. In the confines of the room with the door closed, his new keener sense of smell concentrated on one particular scent. Selene was in heat. Something he would neither have known or cared about when he was human. But now he was a morphic fox whose instinct was taking over. The desire to breed and the scent of a vixen in heat was overwhelming. With seemingly expert skill, she stripped him down to nothing, teasing by going painfully slow as she removed his pants. His erection was released into the cool air of the burrow, a slight chill going up his spine. She nudged him over to the bed where he walked and sat obediently. He watched in almost delicious agony as he watched her slowly disrobe, but was not allowed to touch.

She finally ended and walked over to him, as she got closer he laid down, wriggling up from the edge of the bed until his head was on the pillow. She got onto the bed and kneeled, straddling his legs. He looked her over, her fur glistening in the candle light, every perfect contour of her body picked up by his eyes. Her breasts were covered in pure white fur, the erect nipples of her arousal poking out from beneath her coat, her slim body, the hungry look in her eyes, he drank it all it. The only thing he wasn't able to cast out was the scent of her need, it soaked into every pore of his brain, releasing the full instincts of his new body.

He became painfully aware of his hard-on as it throbbed, waiting to be put to use. She slowly crawled up to him, apparently under similar hormonal influences, until their noses touched. She nuzzled his cheek gently, licking and nibbling through the cheekruffs of his fur. He lovingly returned the gesture, his human mind crying out that this was disgusting but the fox part of him dominated. He grasped her hips and thrust his burning rod as deep inside of her as he could manage without harm, the change having affected his size considerably. She let out a muffled moan into his chest, hoping not to wake the little ones. The sudden wash of pleasure completely subdued the humanity left in him, his hips began thrusting of their own accord as she nursed his nipples like a newborn, making him moan quietly.

They started out slow, intimately exploring one anothers bodies, Derick finding that this body was much more capable of some acts than his human form was. For the next hour they coupled furiously, doing their best not to howl in ecstasy. Selene was wracked by multiple orgasms as Derick reached his peak. With a soft howl, he came harder than he had ever come before, filling his new mate with spurt after spurt of thick foxcum. They lay entwined upon one another, panting lightly from the activity. After they had each regained their breath, they went to the task of cleansing themselves. Selene went first, her muzzle brushing Derik's sheath and making him shudder with renewed pleasure.

Her tongue snaked over her elongated lips, roughly cleaning the fur of his crotch where her juices had soaked him, spending a longer amount of time on his slightly aching furry sac. She took his sheath on lastly, licking with such a skill that he started to grow hard once again. She took the rapidly swelling organ into her muzzle, sucking forcefully and greedily swallowing as much of his flesh as she could handle. His hands clutched the sheets of the bed as his breath hissed through tightly clenched teeth. After another ten minutes of her ministrations, he fed her. His cum splashed against the back of throat, making her murmur her approval. A few small trails from the load of his seed trickled down her muzzle and neck as she hastily swallowed as much of him as she could.

She cleaned him off and watched as his cock retreated back to the warm protection of his sheath. As it was Derick's turn, he began with her muzzle, cleaning off the gift he had given her moments earlier. Delicately grooming every inch of her beautiful muzzle and neck. He moved down to her crotch where he laboriously and meticulously scavenged every small drop of fluid from their excursions, finding he liked the taste of their combination. He brought her to orgasm at least twice as he cleaned, giving him even more to work at. Finally, the two lay side by side, snuggled up against one another. Selene kissed him passionately and smiled, "I'm so glad I have a mate again...Sam was wonderful but he never wanted to do anything outside of the mating season. I have a feeling you'll be much different..."

Derick smiled and hugged her to him. Suddenly, his ears perked as he heard a small female voice crying out for its mother. The kits had woken at last. Selene gave him a gentle scritch on the head and dressed to answer the call of her offspring...no...their offspring. He was to be the new father after all. She winked at him and walked out to answer the call of their children. While she was gone, Derick leaned back and thought about his new position.

If he went back to being human he would have to deal with all of the rigors of being a nobleman's son. Here, he had only to hunt to provide for his mate and their kits and ensure their safety, coupling as they desired. 'This isn't such a bad life after all', he thought to himself, 'maybe when the Warden returns, I'll tell her I'd like to stay just a bit longer'. And on that thought, he nestled down into the covers for a short sleep. When Selene returned he had no doubt what they would most likely do to pass the time. And when night fell, he would have to begin the hunt.

As the duke stared out his window, he addressed the visitor sitting in the chair of his study, "Thank you for telling me of my son, his horse returned riderless and I feared he had suffered a horrible fate. But I know you're always fair in your dealings as is the wood in its punishments. I believe after this experience, he'll know better. That is, if he decides to return after all." The visitor smiled and rose, "It was my pleasure milord. That is what I am here for. It was wonderful to see you again but I must return to the woods, I'm needed there. As for your son, I think he may be deciding to stay for quite some time. Good evening Gabriel, and by the way Selene will be having another kit shortly, I don't know if you'd care to attend the birthing or not. At any rate, good night my friend!" With the final farewell said, the Warden vanished from the Duke's study.

Fin.

Lessons learned copyright 1997 by Timefox.