WFT 03

World’s Fluffiest Teacher

03: A Very Poor Choice of Words

Raine slowly drifted awake. Sleep dug at her like an all-consuming morass, threatening to bring her back under sleep’s veil. Yet, she soldiered on because classes were a responsibility she would always see to and—

Oh. She didn’t have classes anymore. Nor would she ever again.

It was remarkably easy to drift back to the void after that realization but for one, tiny thing.

She heard fire. Specifically, she heard and felt the warmth of a cozy fire. Which was really fucking weird as her apartment didn’t have a god damn fireplace.

Raine sat up and opened her eyes. She was in the single coziest bedroom she had ever seen. The floor was a hard wood with a thick, fluffy carpet occupying much of its open space. The walls were made of arched wood paneling that probably cost as much as her car did by the quality alone. A painting hung up of a great keep overlooking a vast, endless forest that stretched into forever. The quality of the painting alone made it the second best artwork she had ever seen and even that was only by a slim margin. A curved window was on the opposite corner, showing a merry night sky with constellations she did not recognize.

And of course, there was a merry fireplace in the corner, cased with brass wyverns at the top of each corner. The crackling was soothing.

Raine looked around with some rising panic as this was very much not her apartment. Then she glanced down and saw breasts. Sure, she was wearing her clothes now, but there was no mistaking the breasts where a flat chest should be. Also, was that a fluffy tail? The wiggling she commanded suggested yes, she did indeed have a fluffy tail.

WAIT. SHE!? Raine glanced under her clothes and saw the changes did not end at breasts.

Raine took all this in for a very long while as she stared into space. Finally, she glanced at the window as the night only ever so slowly began to wear to a brighter hue and decided fuck everything. She was going back to sleep.

With a huff, she was once more covered in the softest, most satiny blankets she had ever experienced, and eagerly dove headfirst back into unconsciousness because no to dealing with all this.

~~~~

Prismatia had been patient— she’d waited all night for the poor girl to wake up... but it’d been half the day and it was time for her to wake up and the two of them to have a chat. She could hear her snoring, for the gods’ sake.

She knocked on the room’s door, quite honestly feeling a little awkward about all of this. Had Sumire effectively kidnapped the poor woman? Prismatia had so many questions she’d have to ask just to get her settled into her new life. As expected of that goddess...

“Miss? You need to get up!”  she called through the door, not wanting to start things off on a poor footing.

After waiting for a while, she decided to open the door— she normally respected other people’s sleep, but this was getting a little ridiculous. Looking in, she saw a pair of fluffy purple ears sticking out from a cocoon of blankets and not much else.

Prismatia should ignore the voice in her head telling her to scritch those ears. She really should. It’d be inappropriate, right? But she looked cute like that...

As if responding to her thoughts, the dark ears twitched adorably amidst the pile of blankets.

No, no, wait. This was bad! She grabbed the blanket cocoon and shook it gently, trying to wake the younger woman up before she gave in to temptation.

The oh so fuzzy kitsune’s ears once more twitched, the white tips of her ears looking oh so delightfully soft. The woman mumbled and shifted, a sign of more activity than she’d displayed thus far.

“Miss, it’s past noon. It’s time to get up,” She shook her again, decidedly more roughly this time. Godsdamn it, woman, ignore the cute fluffy ears! This was serious business!

Finally, the woman stirred. Her oh so pettable ears twitched thrice more before she finally sat up with a half grumble, half yawn. She stretched her arms up high, stretching her ill fitting shirt in notable ways. Up this close her freckles were very notable on her cheeks. The sight alone was unexpectedly adorable, given most kitsune illusioned slight blemishes away or transformed, leaving a freckled kitsune as an unexpected sight, but not an unwelcome one.

Finally, she opened her eyes, blue orbs locking onto Prismatia’s amber eyes. She started, just a bit, but calmed down quickly enough even if the concern didn’t leave her face. “Sorry. Just a bit startled. Who are you? Where am I? How did I get here?” she asked, rapidly, in the language of magic: English.

Native English speakers were... rare, these days. Albion and the Albionese had been nearly wiped out after the Godesses had altered reality to imbed Narrative Casting and the English language into the nature of Magic itself. According to Aiko, the English language becoming the natural language of magic was some sort of prank on the Archmage who’d made the very argument that had convinced her that Narrative Casting should be the dominant paradigm of magic. This had had... unfortunate consequences for everyone involved.

“Woah, careful there. If your intent was any more focused, you’d be casting constantly,” Prismatia raised her hands, directing the ambient mana that the younger woman’s words had called up into a flash of bright light and pleasant scents to bleed off a bit of it.

The woman jumped, nearly emerging from her blanket cocoon but not quite as she backed up until she hit the headrest. She blinked, wiping her eyes that had narrowed to slits while her now exposed tail poofed up massively in apparent alarm. Slowly, her look of startlement faded to a mix of confusion mixed with a touch of intrigue. “Um. What was that just now? Why was there a flash of light and why does it smell of fresh bread in here? Wait, was that actual magic? How? Also what do you mean? I was just asking questions about where the heck I am? I last remember drinking and then there was a fox and… wait am I a girl now?” The woman, reminded of this fact, checked her shirt. “Okay, I wasn’t hallucinating. I am very female now and this is not a dream, or at least not one I can break out of. Um, what—"

Prismatia raised up a hand- “Mutual Intelligibility. Right, I’m going to answer your questions now, but please stop babbling. If you keep recklessly speaking English without a deliberate outcome in mind, you’re going to cause a massive local spike in Wild Magic. Yes, that was magic, I channeled some of the Mana your use of English stirred up into a deliberately inefficient spell to calm things down a bit. You not being a girl before is... well, frankly either she tapped into a desire you weren’t aware of or you’re probably the type to be relatively flexible about these things?” She paused, waiting to see if her words had sunk in before she continued. “She’s weirdly not that malicious for a goddess of evil, at least until she is. The local Magic system uses English as its primary language for... reasons we will get into later, but for now it’s enough to say that spellcasting is essentially telling reality a story and it likes hearing them in English.”

The woman listened intently, fixated on Prismatia. Slowly, she raised a soft hand.

“Yes, Miss?” Prismatia sighed, relaxing a little now that the translation spell she’d cast had bled off a significant portion of the mana the young kitsune’s words had stirred up. The gesture was cute— the woman reminded her in that moment of some of her more attentive and polite students.

“I know no language except English,” she stated, to dead silence. The very mana in the room seemed to coil and tense in response to this declaration of fact. It swirled around her, metaphysical chains forming around her head and throat before sinking into her skin and disappearing.

“Are you fucking kidding me— right, I suppose this could be worse.” Prismatia sighed, rubbing her palm against her forehead.  Since you’ve accidentally just robbed yourself of the option of having you learn other languages more or less instantly, you’re going to have to learn the old fashioned way. Thankfully, you’re here at Mourningwood, an academy of magic and learning, and you have me right here! That means you’re going to spend the next however long learning how to cast properly and to communicate in other languages from me, personally!”

The woman was silent for a long, long moment. She looked at Prismatia, the room that still smelled delightfully of a bakery in the morning, the walls, outside, and finally back to Prismatia. “FUCK,” she said, poignantly and concisely.

The dragoness giggled in spite of herself. “That’s a bold proposition for someone who doesn’t even know my name. Anyway, I’m Prismatia Esoterica, and I’m the headmistress of this school. And you, my new cute student, are going to introduce yourself now, yes?”

Her ears twitched back and forth as she digested this, evidently missing the implied innuendo entirely. “Raine,” she said. The tense wild mana in the area, already poked, prodded, enticed, teased, and more, took no time to act in response to the unfocused word in the language of magic.

The previously sunny skies promptly darkened and a rain squall descended upon Mourningwood Academy, notably pelting the window.

“Well, Miss Raine— it looks like things are about to get pretty interesting for us, huh? Hmm... we’ll have to figure something out to allow you to communicate in the meantime,” Prismatia grinned, pushing her frustrations out of mind. “For now, though, you must be famished. Come on, let’s get you something to eat... and to wear. That outfit of yours doesn’t exactly fit well anymore.”

Raine nodded a bit absently, looking more than a bit overwhelmed by the recent string of events.

She extended a hand to the younger woman, beckoning her to stand up, to take it, anything really. She put on her best reassuring smile, though given her fangs it was probably a bit less reassuring than she’d like.

Still, this was the kind of problem she preferred over the bigger ones she was forced to deal with. It was a problem she could handle a lot more easily than most of her duties. It wasn’t some big political problem; it wasn’t a godsdamned cult worshipping her, and it wasn’t the potentially cataclysmic fallout of forcing other people on her level to use basic common sense. It wasn’t navigating the bothersome, complex geopolitics of the world.

Miss Raine was simply a student in need of help, and that was where Prismatia thrived.

~~~~

AN:

Kitsu: Ar nar! Poor foxxo only speaks in Magic! Foxxo will need all the headpats.

HiddenMaster: Indeed. Nearly happened this chapter. How long can Prismatia resist before she pets the foxxo?

BookDragon: Who can say? But yeah— here’s a little hint at how the magic system works that’ll get expanded on in future chapters! And some cute fluffy bits! We hope you’re enjoying things so far!

Kitsu: It’s going to be funny when Prismatia finds out that Foxxos are weak to headpats and tail brushies.

HiddenMaster: Indeed, going to be a catch 22 there. Does Prismatia use her forbidden knowledge to disable Raine, or does she give up her dignified persona in favor of going, “Aww aren’t you the cutest yes you are yes you are!” as she applies brushies and pets? Only time will tell.

BookDragon: Experiencing a bit of second-hand embarrassment here. Also, fun fact! Originally, Raine was going to just be her surname, but then Hidden thought he was really funny so, here we are! Admittedly, it was pretty funny.

HiddenMaster: With the commentary out of the way, we are now to the bit most people skip over! The support links! Dragon, I, Kitsu, we’re all trying to make our writing our way of living, so every little bit helps!

HiddenMaster’s supports: https://hiddenmasterarchive.carrd.co/

BookDragon: Feed da dragon! Worship da dragon! Forfeit all mortal possessions to the dragon (...please don’t do that last one, I don’t want to start a cult) https://dragongrimoire.carrd.co/