Which One?

Ara stared at the belt, somewhat bewildered.

"Did he make it along with the clothes? ... no, he'd have given it to me back then if that were the case" she thought out loud as she took it in her hands. ... and noticed a little fur on their back.

"W... wait"

Had she ever grown fur before -tails and ears aside-? No, that had never happened before, she was sure of it. So what was going on? She wasn't going to turn into a fox like Eun, right? ... no, that was unlikely. Eun would've warned her of that if there really was a chance of it happening. But the fur was there. What else would appear if case she couldn't get those tails to disappear? The coldness on her hand brought her mind back to the chastity belt. Her ears twitched once or twice. Then she noticed a small note on the floor.

"The lock might be broken and remain open. If that is the case, tell me and I'll fix it"

She stood there for a short while. Was that... his way of letting her keep the belt off for a while? On one hand, she had an hard time thinking that that was the case. On the other, Oberon just handing her a possibly broken belt simply telling her that it might not work seemed just as weird. What if she just left it there and told him that it was indeed broken? On second thought, that was a bad idea. There might be consequences if he found out the belt wasn't really malfunctional. Which meant she had to at least try it on. And so she did just that, with a rather loud sigh. The cold metal slid along her skin, reached her privates and covered them. Then she tried to close it.

The lock clicked... and slid back, still open. She probably should have given it at least a second try just to be sure but that really wasn't something she really wanted to get to work -it wasn't, right?- so she simply dropped the belt and got dressed, trying to ignore the fact that her normal panties felt a bit too light in comparison. She brought the broken belt to her room to avoid Rena walking in the bathroom and stumbling upon it, then headed to the kitchen, crossing paths with the elf on the stairs.

"Are you allright?" she asked, quite worried.

"I'm fine... mostly. It wasn't as bad as I had feared" Ara replied.

"That's nice to hear. Dinner is ready, I was just about to come to call you"

The meal went by uneventfully, except for Ara realizing that she now had fangs rather than simple teeth, but compared to all the other changes that didn't feel too special -for one reason or another-, and once they were done eating the elf headed to the bathroom for a shower while the other two remained there to clean up.

"Does the belt work?" Oberon asked suddenly, though Ara knew that question was coming.

"No, it doesn't"

"I see. I'll fix when I have enough time. Do you feel like working again tomorrow?"

"A-already?"

"There aren't any leftovers inside you, so if you're not too tired there's nothing stopping you from working"

"T-that..." she replied, blushing at the mention of all the times her... coworkers came inside her "W... with this body again?"

"It's not a problem if you prefer waiting to turn back to normal"

"... with... what, this time?"

"A plant. It should be a rather easy session"

"A plant? How am I supposed to... can a person even... well... d-do it with a plant?" she asked, carefully avoiding eye contact.

"... it probably can't be called sexual intercourse, you're right.. If you do decide to work tomorrow, however, I recommend to drink a lot"

She thought about it. Knowing that she was much closer than she had initially thought to paying off her debt spurred her forward. And the slime didn't really satisfy her, truth be told. Oddly enough, Ara didn't really reject the second point that time, she just told herself that it wasn't as important as the first one.

"... I'll do it" she answered, raising her gaze enough to look Oberon in the eyes.

"Take this then" he said as he gave her a bottle filled to the brim with a green fluid "Drink all of it before going to sleep. It's to keep you safer tomorrow"

"Should I... worry?" she asked while looking at the drink, which didn't really give off an healthy vibe.

"As much as every other time, I guess"

... ... ...

She grabbed the bottle and headed back to her room. She thought about getting herself off since she had the chance, but then considered that maybe not doing that might make the following day's session more enjoyable. Oberon said there'd be no proper intercourse, but that was just because the definition didn't really apply to human-plant action, right? ... did it happen to human-animal anyway? She wasn't sure, and she didn't even really want to think much about something like that. As a matter of fact, however, she felt confident that things would play out nicely. Then she buried her blushing face in the bed's pillow upon realizing just what thoughts she'd been having.

After a few minutes she got back up, took the bottle and started drinking. It tasted surprisingly sweet, and she had no trouble gulping it all down. Or rather, the flavor wasn't a problem, but since those were three liters she actually had to force herself to drink all of it, especially because she'd just had dinner. Then she took off her clothes, keeping only her underwear on, brought Obe on the bed and went to sleep, hugging him with arms and tails.

Nothing special happened the next morning. If anything, Ara was relieved to see that Oberon was apparently done treating her the way he did the previous day. Though she had no idea why he acted that way. Truth be told, she suspected he just acted normally and she was the one seeing things the wrong way. Or maybe he really wanted to get back at her for how she had treated him when the positions were switched. Regardless of that, Rena went to work after lunch as usual, and soon after Ara and Oberon stepped inside the elevator as well, carrying some bottles of water with them. This time they went all the way to the eleventh floor, which for some reason worried Ara. Once there they headed to the first door. The antechamber was filled with glass boxes, most of which were empty. Those that weren't contained flowers around as large as an adult's hand, each of several different shades of colors, though most were either blue or purple. Ara took a couple of deep breaths, partially trying to ignore the fact that she was actually a bit... eager to step inside the dome. When they did, they found themselves at the base of a dune. A sand one.

"This isn't the wrong place, right?" she asked.

"What makes you think that?"

"A desert isn't where I'd expect to find a plant"

"There are plants in the desert though"

"That's not what I meant..."

"You drank the whole bottle, right?"

"Yes, I did"

She wanted to ask what was that, but she also felt that asking that now would just seem silly.

As for the desert itself, it wasn't as hot as one would expect. Actually, the temperature was pleasantly warm. There wasn't much wind either. They walked for quite a while, and as much as she looked around, Ara saw no signs of plants, at least not until they got past a particularly tall dune. From there she could actually see a sort of weird tree, rather close too. They reached it soon enough, and upon close inspection she realized that, rather than a tree, that was a bunch of tangled creepers, though she had no idea what might be supporting them. Or rather, they seemed to either be supporting each other or simply not having a support in the first place. Which would probably mean they actually weren't creepers to begin with. There were several flowers sprouting from here and there, and in the upper part of the fake tree they were so many and so large that they really resembled a tree's foliage, casting a rather wide shadow beneath them. The interweaved plants -assuming they really were several different ones- seemed to extend deep under the sand. That... probably wasn't solid footing she guessed.

"... what am I supposed to do?" she asked, with no clue about how to act.

"Touch it with your bare skin, that should be enough" Oberon replied as he took some steps forward and sat down, at little more than an arm's length from the "trunk".

"Touch it" she repeated as she closed in.

She noticed several tendrils extending from the base of the tangle. Quite a few were also half hidden underneath the sand, which probably meant there were more completely buried. Just as she thought that, Ara felt something move under her feet. She took another step forward, and a couple of what seemed to be a middleground of sort between lianas and vines emerged from the sand and briefly moved aroud with no apparent aim before wrapping themselves around her ankles. A couple of seconds of nothing happening followed, and then Ara got suddenly dragger towards the tangle, the abrupt pull making her fall on her back. The sand wasn't too bad of a gound to smash her head against, but the creepers-made trunk turned out to be surprisingly sturdy when her rear hit it, hard. That actually hurt, not too much but still. She was about to say something, but then stopped as she realized that talking to a plant was probably pointless. That's, more pointless than talking to apparently horny animals was.

Her legs had been pulled along the trunk for their whole length, bringing her groin against it as more lianas emerged from the sand and wrapped themselves around both her legs and the tangle, securing her to it. And just as she tried to get back up, several new vines rised from beneath her, twisting themselves around her chest and arms and pulling her back down against the sand. They seemed to ignore her tails though. Ara just... stood there. She wasn't calm, but she also wasn't really nervous. She was actually almost looking forward to whatever was going to happen. The thought was kicked away from her mind not too quickly, and just as that went on inside her head, something stung her on her arm. And leg. And belly. A bit all over, whenever the vines were. The hardly noticeable pain however lingered, and actually started... moving in a bit deeper under her skin.

"H-hey... Oberon, is this..."

"It's not harmful" he answered before she could even finish her question.

"I sure hope so..." she replied as she felt what probably were roots latching to her skin.

"You drank herbicide exactly to make sure this wouldn't be dangerous in the sligthest"

"That was herbicide?!"

"Had it been toxic, I wouldn't have asked you to drink it"

"I... guess..."

Having a plant grow roots in the upper layers of her skin was nowhere near as painful as she'd have imagined something like that to be, but it was quite distressing anyway. Her tails moved around, at least those which hadn't ended up completely between her back and the sand, as the weak pain began fading. Then something started falling from the fake foliage, causing her to sneeze a couple of times. Was that pollen? The smell was really pungent, and hit her nostrils hard. Soon after, she felt something against her skin, and saw a few very small flowers blooming here and there from the roots on her skin. She found that... not as uncanny as she would have expected. And when she felt their petals pushed against both her breasts and her entrance by her own underwear -clearly they'd bloomed inside there too- the fact became simply awkward.

To make things worse, those petals made her skin tingle. Not much on her arms or legs as they hardly touched them, only the roots being in actual contact with her skin, but rather on her more... sensitive areas, where the whole flower was pushed against her. Her tails kept waving lightly against the moved her fingers around a bit as nothing else happened. Basking in the shadow in the middle of a desert sounded like a relatively nice thing to do, but considering that her position wasn't too comfortable and that the temperature was far from that one would expect from such a place meant that it actually wasn't such a great experience.

She sneezed again as the temperature seemed to rise slightly. The urge to... let's say scratch herself kept increasing slowly, and Ara tried to ignore it. Oberon said there'd be no proper intercourse, but he said that only because it doesn't make much sense to talk about intercourse between a person and a plant. That was surely the reason. Something was bound to happen. It had to. That train of thoughts distracted Ara for a while, as well as turning her cheeks red, but as time went on nothing really happened. Well, almost nothing. The flowers seemed to be growing larger. They looked quite nice, if a bit uncanny, on her skin, and felt even more tingly underneat her underwear. And even without that, her body had been steadily getting hotter since quite a while.

The plant pulled her up a bit along its trunk as she started sweating, causing her pelvis to raise up, just enough for her dress to roll back down a bit. Her blush grew a tiny bit brighter as her panties were left exposed, though the petals sticking out from underneath them made for a really odd view. On the bright side, they made it so that Oberon couldn't see that she was wet. She looked to the side, and noticed that he was reading his usual book, casting glances over her every few seconds.

"S-say" she spoke, her voice not really hiding her frustration "Is something... going to happen?" she asked, trying to be as indirect as possible about it.

"Not really"

... oh, come on...

"The plant will simply keep drinking from you. Once it has taken in enough herbicide from your system it will release you"

"W... what if that doesn't work?"

"Then we'd use one of the back up plans" Oberon replied, and the conversation ended there since she wasn't sure she wanted to know what those other plans were.

The pollen kept falling, and Ara felt her privates getting more and more tingly. It was getting quite hot there. Or maybe it was just her. She realized that the plant was drinking her sweat, and something else as well. She wanted to touch herself, in all honesty, but her arms were quite bound at the moment. Her breathing was getting a bit ragged, if only from her excitement, and as time went by, not struggling to at least try to free her hands became more and more difficult. Because she was afraid that doing so would be like telling him that she wanted to masturbate, and she was quite sure she wouldn't be able to stand the embarrassment.

To make things worse, thinking about him in that situation brought her mind back to that one morning, which made the tingling of her privates feel even stronger than before. On the bright side, however, that was keeping her attention away from the -much less- bothersome tingling she was feeling a bit all over her skin, though that wasn't really a great consolation. She kept not struggling, biting down on her lips instead in an attempt to endure the frustration which was getting more and more intense. Maybe she hadn't realized it, but the only reasons her own fluids weren't dripping down along her skin was that the flower was drinking them up.

"Thirsty?" Oberon asked.

She turned her head back and saw him sitting at less than an arm's length from her, his book in one hand, a bottle of water in the other.

"Y-yes" she replied.

He helped her raise her head up a bit to make drinking easier and held the neck of the bottle against her lips, letting her drink until she emptied the whole thing. That said, she still felt hot. In more than one way too.

"Say" she then spoke "What's that book? You've been reading it since before I started... uh, working here?"

She couldn't really do much in that situation anyway, so maybe talking about something unrelated might help ignoring the tingling, which was threatening to become overbearing. Oberon didn't reply immediatly. He listened to her slighty ragged breath for a couple of seconds as he wondered how to form his answer.

"It's a manual" he answered then.

"And what is it about?"

A brief silence, during which he seemed to ponder how to articulate his reply. Truth be told, that wasn't the same book he was reading back when Ara arrived, but for some reason the bookseller Oberon always bought from had all of his books with neither words nor images on both the front and the back, making them look like each other except for size differences. But he also tried his best to make sure they all were around the same size as well. Why, Oberon didn't know, and he also figured it wasn't important enough to tell Ara about it at the moment, so he based his reply on what the book he was reading at the moment was.

"The different kind of possible responses given by an electric system as reaction to a large array of different external events that cause an internal response of varying nature, and the way the system's casing can be secured in place in different ways depending on the necessity to avoid having it slip away while operating on it"

"... come again?"

"It's about how something reacts to different things and how to analyse and obtain such reactions"

"You just went from one extreme to the other"

"I'd like to ask you something too"

"... sure" she replied after having decided that she could always just ask him to see the book and avoid more contrived answers. In a more normal situation, that is. With that said, however, she had an inexplicable bad feeling about whatever it is that he wanted to ask.

"Why did you turn down the photo shoot?"

"I-is there anything else you wanted to ask?"

A brief silence.

"You've been acting rather strangely in the past few days"

"Ahahah, do you... think so... ?" she replied, her voice growing weaker as words left her mouth.

"I would appreciate it if you answered the first question" he said with his usual, neutral tone.

This isn't distracting at all!

"I-I just that... a photo shoot means there'd be photos around that people would be able to see..."

"What about your public performance then?"

"T-that was just a one-time thing! There are no recordings of it and nobody took any kind of photo!" she replied, her ears twitching wildly, her tails flailing around.

"... technically speaking" Oberon said after a brief silence "I and the others have recorded it"

"W-wh... what?!" she shouted. For some reason that revelation made her feel even more sensitive, which in turn increased her frustration even more. She forgot to not struggle against the vines.

"In order for us to have a memory, we store all informations we perceive in an inner hard disk, and if need be we can export the data from there to other platforms"

"But... you won't, right?"

"I have no reason to do so" he replied, at which Ara took a breath of relief "Unless the mistress tells me to. Do you want another bottle?"

Ara decided that drinking was the best way to kill off that conversation, and took him up on the offer. That, and she was thirsty too. Nothing else really happened. Her arousal kept increasing, bringing her frustration to new heights as the tingling feeling grew stronger and stronger, while the pollen formed a visible layer over her -Oberon wiped it off her face a few times- and her limbs gradually lost strength. At one point she bit her lips to prevent herself from shouting, as that was the only thing she could do to let off some steam but at the same time she didn't really want to. She closed her eyes and tried to think about something else, and ended up replaying an old game of chess in her head. With an advertising break about her "professional" encounters at the menagerie every two moves. When the game ended she was in a much worse state than when it began.

At that point Ara either forgot about why she wasn't struggling against the vines or decided that the reason she had before was no longer valid enough. But as she did so, she realized that her limbs had grown even weaker than she had realized. More time went by, she ended up drinking all the water they had brought along, and Ara resorted to biting her lips to try and focus more on the pain rather than the frustration. Her fangs did dig into her flesh easily after all.

"We should head back" Oberon then said, apparently out of the blue.

"Eh?"

She looked down -her gaze had been lost on the sky for a while, following the sun as it began to set- and noticed that the flowers were no longer blooming and the roots were gone from her skin. She still felt hot and tingling, but she was hardly sweating anymore.

"... I... can't" Ara said as she moved her tails to cover up her panties. With the flower gone, she had started soaking them.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not really feeling my limbs. I can't move them"

"... how odd" he replied as he moved to pick her up.

"W-wait, what do you mean "odd"? This isn't normal?" she asked, worried.

"It's probably a side effect of the pollen due to your current physical condition. ... I'm talking about the fox traits, not about your height" he then added when Ara gave him a weird stare "If it were something serious we would already know, so you should get back in shape by tomorrow"

"I-is that so..."

Ara screamed internally, with no idea about how she managed to not scream vocally as well since that meant she couldn't even touch herself, even though -as far as she knew at least- the chastity belt wasn't ready yet. And the tingling was killing her at that point. She somehow managed to keep a vague -really vague, truth be told- semblance of composure all the way to the bathroom. As they walked in, however, they found Rena already showering. The elf turned towards them, quite unfazed by their sudden entrance. Or rather, she seemed just a bit surprised.

"I have a few things to take care of" Oberon said then as he placed Ara down "Can you help her wash while I prepare dinner?"

"... sure... " Rena replied, a bit confused. "... so, what happened?" she then asked Ara, as soon as Oberon left.

"W... well..."

Ara screamed internally again. Twice.

An hour or so went by. Rena showered Ara in her place since she couldn't move, dried her up and brought her to her own room -Obe was hidden and out of sight-, placed her lying on the bed, then walked downstairs to the kitchen. There she found dinner ready and served, but Oberon was nowhere to be seen. Instead there was a note left on the table saying that something important came up and he had to deal with it as soon as possible. Shrugging it off, the elf went back to Ara's room and informed her of the situation, asked her if she wanted to be spoon-fed since she still couldn't move, and walked away when she replied that she'd just eat something once she could order her limbs around again. At that point, Ara took a few deep breaths and waited a short while. A too short while maybe. She wasn't sure Rena had noticed just how aroused she was, but at the moment she didn't even really care that much.

"Obe" she called out.

The improper body pillow came out of hiding and mechanically stood up.

"Take the key and lock the door" she ordered "The key is in the first drawer" she added then as Obe didn't seem to know where she had left it. Which made sense.

He was moving a bit slower than when she had him make her bed, but maybe that was just because he'd done that quite a few times already and had gotten used to it. Or whatever the equivalent of "getting used to it" was for a low-level ai-driven doll, to use Eve's own words. Sometimes it still didn't feel real that Eve and Oberon were machines.

"Take off the blanket" she said then, the anticipation and excitement torturing her, the tingling feeling only enhancing both of those feelings.

Again, Obe followed her orders.

"Pull m..." she started saying before some remnants of shame stopped her. Briefly.

"Pull my p-panties down"

He complied, as emotionlessly as ever. She couldn't really see her own privates in that position, but she could still feel herself being wet. So much so that she was probably drenching the sheets too. She could feel his gaze on her entrance, and the only reason she didn't blush was that her cheeks had already turned red when she had him... it... Obe remove her underwear.

"F... fi... fi-finger m-me" she said, her tails waving nervously, her ears twitching back and forth.

The mechanical doll got on the bed and sat on his knees in order to have a better reach then, without any ceremony, slid a finger inside Ara. She jumped up slightly, probably because that was a reflex rather than a willing motion, but the light movement of a single finger was not enough. It was so far from what she needed that it only increased her frustration even more, doing absolutely nothing to alleviate her tingling. Especially because Obe inserted his index but actually didn't move it at all.

"U-use... more fingers. And m-move... twist them a-around"

Oberon's small replica did as he was told, and Ara could finally feel her tingling getting scratched. She bit her lips both to hold her voice down and to not miss out on an orgasm which she was feeling getting closer, her muscles contracting and relaxing on their own in response to the blissfully stimulation she was finally receiving. Her climax made her dig her teeth in her own flesh so much she started bleeding, but she either didn't notice or didn't care. That wasn't enough.

"Lower my dress and gro... grab my chest" she ordered between her ragged breaths "F-fondle it" she then added as Obe literally grabbed her -temporarily- small breasts and nothing else.

"D-don't stop your fingers... a-a bit deeper in..." Ara instructed him, with a small part of her mind constantly repeating that what she was doing was simple masturbation and that Obe wasn't really alive.

She then had him remove her bra and tweak her nipples, then went back to bite her lips soon before the second orgams ran through her body, her fur pricked up while her ears stood straight up. But the tingling was still there. She closed her eyes and focused exclusively on the pleasure she was feeling, savoring it as much as she could, occasionally giving Obe directives about how to move his fingers. At one point she had him move his hand from her breasts to her clit and start rubbing it, quickly building up another orgasm which made Ara arc her back as the sweet feeling encompassed her body.

She then told Obe to fondle her chest with both hands becuase she needed to catch her breath but also didn't want a real break, but soon ordered him to lick both her entrance and clit instead while fingering her. Having her breasts fondled reminded her of her current height, which made the whole thing feel somewhat immoral, even though it probably wasn't. That said, Ara choked on every other word when giving Obe that last command, since telling him to do that also made everything just that much more embarassing. His movements weren't exactly that of an expert, but Ara's arousal was so high at the moment that even those were enough to send waves of pleasure crashing against her whole system, her already ragged breath getting more and more irregular with every lick and scratch. Her third orgasm nearly made her convulse, sparks flying in her mind as she got lost in the pleasure, the pain from her bleeding lips allowing her to get to an even higher level of ecstasy.

As the echo of the climax resounded in her body, Obe didn't stop, nor did she tell him to. Instead she closed her eyes and threw her head back, the still lingering pleasure ramping back up again every time his tongue ran against her clit, every time his fingers pushed against her insides, his already cold body feeling almost freezing against her burning up flesh, the sloppy noised caused by Ara's wetness making her even more conscious of what she was doing.

"M-more... ahh... aahh... r-r... rougher!" she almost shouted, completely forgetting that Rena might hear her.

For a frighteningly long second the feeling of Obe's touch disappeared without a warning, leaving Ara if not shocked then simply speechless, but almost immediatly she felt him grab her and pull her closer to the bed frame, her legs falling down as her hips were brought on the very edge of the bed. He then firmly grasped her, pulled her up a bit and restarted licking her entrance. With the very idea of holding her voice back completely gone from her thoughts, Ara started moaning rather loudly, her breathing getting more and more irregular every time the cold tongue ran against her clit. Obe then pushed his index inside her, while inserting his middle finger in her butt. She shrieked, her fur standing right up as more and more jolts of pleasure ran through her. She felt the two fingers bending and twisting around inside of her, but she still wasn't satisfied, and pretty much shouted again at Obe to get rougher.

And, as usual, the doll followed her directives and began sucking on her clit, almost violently, while shoving four fingers inside her entrance and using them to stir and scratch her insides. At the same time he moved his free hand in front of her butt and pushed two fingers inside, which were quickly followed by a third one, each moving around in a different way. Ara let herself get lost in the blissful feeling, the fact that she couldn't actually see what he was doing while lying down making the pleasure even stronger, her ears twitching crazily as her own voice echoed in the room, up until she bit her lips again as she felt her next orgasm approaching, getting closer with every wave of pleasure running through her body, all the way to the tip of her tails, until it hit her like a tide crashing against her every nerve, her muscles contracting as her fangs spilled blood from her own lips, the pain triggering an even greater ecstasy.

Then she felt something new. Her climax was still shaking her very bones when Obe pushed his whole hand inside of her, the sudden pressure pushed against her inner walls sending additional jolts through her body, with several others following as his fingers began scratching her from within, much deeper than before. Ara pretty much lost her breath, the pleasure violently coursing through her every fiber without subsiding as Obe kept stimulating her in three different ways all at once, the ecstasy making it pretty much impossible for her to think straight. She remained in that state of bliss for a short while, until her body started to tremble. Then she somehow managed to gather enough air in her lungs to tell Obe to stop.

Though she clearly didn't say it loud enough, since Obe kept going. The pleasure, which was already overwhelming, kept increasing, making it even harder for Ara to breathe, let alone say something. She felt another orgasm approaching, but this time she forced herself to not bite herself, and while she was still feeling some residual pain from the previous bites, the lack of a proper trigger weaked the following orgasm, not enoug for it to not shake her whole body again, but at least enough for her to gather some air in her lungs, enough to shout at Obe to stop. And apparently he heard her this time, as his fingers and tongue stopped moving. Then she felt his hand sliding out from within her, sending another shock through her body, one more, loud moan escaping her mouth.

Ara then started catching her breath, her tails lying all around her, sweat covering her skin and a different kind of fluid drenching her lower half. The pleasure was still reverberating within her, which caused her to still let out a moan every now and then, but the tingling had finally gone away.

Exhaustion quickly overcame her, and sleep arrived soon after.

The first thing Ara did the next morning was yawning. The second one was stretching her limbs. The third one was realizing that she could move them again. The fourth one was remembering what she'd done with Obe, which made her hide under the sheets. Or at least made her try, her tails being a big too cumbersome for that. She took some minutes to calm down, then prepared a change of clothes and... clothes. The ones she was wearing were torn, leaving her basically naked. She looked at Obe, which was still lying where she had left it, and found that he was no longer as tall as her. She checked with a few other things just to make sure, before confirming. She was back to her normal height! ... and the chastity belt was back in its place too... when did that happen? To take her mind off that, she told herself that she needed a shower. A quick one probably, since her stomach decided to kindly remind her that she'd skipped dinner the previous day and was in need of nourishment. She headed to the bathroom, had a quick shower then dried herself and got changed into her asymmetrical dress.

Her hair and tails were still rather wet when she entered the kitchen -she was hungry, and as long as she wasn't leaving a trail of water behind her it was fine- and there she found Rena.

"Oh, you're back to normal. Thankfully" the elf commented while eating.

"... where is Oberon?" she asked as she sat down. Breakfast was ready and served, but he wasn't around.

"Don't think about him for now"

"... did... something happen?"

"... Ara" Rena then spoke, intentioned to change subject "Don't take this the wrong way, but could you be a bit quieter when you masturbate?"

Ara nearly chocked on her drink.

"W-w-wha..." she replied, her cheecks turning red as her stails swayed aimlessly behind her.

She realized only at that point that she had forgotten about keeping her voice down the previous night. No, not even that, she had completely disregarded the very idea of doing so.

"Y-you're r-right, s... sorry..." Ara said, her gaze locked on the table as she grabbed something to eat.

"Since we're on the subject already" the elf added then "Do you always talk as if there's someone else there when you do that?"

This time Ara nearly chocked on a brioche.

"Y-yes!" she almost shouted, her face bright red "Is that w-weird?!"

"I... think not..." Rena replied, taken aback by the sudden outburst.

A rather long silence followed, and the two of them decided to simply have breakfast for the time being.

"... but" Ara eventually added "Why shouldn't I think about Oberon?"

Rena didn't reply immediatly. Instead she took a deep breath, then looked Ara in the eyes.

"Oberon..." she then said "... I met him this morning while you were having a shower, and... he was using the smaller body again" she spoke.

Ara's mind briefly stopped working, and her skin grew pale, turning almost the same color as her fur.

"W... w... when... ?"

"I'm not sure, but the last time I saw him with his normal body was when he brought you into the bathroom yesterday. If that's what you wanted to know. Considering how you acted last time, I thin-"

Without waiting for the elf to finish her sentence, Ara darted off, headed to her room. She closed the door behind her and grabbed Obe.

"You were Obe, right? Right? Right?!"

The mechanical body pillow didn't answer.

"... a-after all, Oberon should still be using the small body, so... if this one is him, then I won't meet him in the menagerie, right?"

She told Obe to hide again, and after making sure he did so she walked out, a storm of thoughts in her head. And right there was Oberon. In his usual, tall body.

"Good morning" he said with his usual, composed voice.

At which Ara reflexively pointed her shaky finger at him and told the only thing she could come up with, her face redder than a ripe tomato.

"W-which one was it? Which one?!"

Thank you for reading.