As she sits... waiting for the moment she enters the TV. It's anxious. Then... a pain on her leg... a disorienting pulse, as she feels an immense pull, and can't feel her hands, and then. *BANG*, she falls to the ground. She whimpers, and yowls loudly in a panic... then breathes... slowly, shaking, whimpering over and over, "Oh *whimper* my god... *whimper* ah... what the fuck! *yowl*" Her head swims. As she looks up, and sees an animated world. Her hands... animated... but not hands! She gets up, and yips, and whimpers in a panic. As she realizes... she is not human right now\... a full-blown fox! She shakes, as she notices a glowing rune on her belly, as she turns over. Her paws are sharp, clawed. Her ears flick, as her tail flicks. Nearby... Karlen sits... and walks over slowly, and says, "Are you alright?" He speaks in Chinese, but she can understand his every word. His glowing eyes of pure purple feel expressive with empathy. His form is a black 3D silhouette of a fox. Animated with glowing purple sharp eyes, and glowing purple teeth. A simplistic design. Yet... she could read EVERY facial cue. Like he was a human! She notices a glowing mark on his belly... same as her own, and a thin strand of light connecting them. She slowly gets up, shaking, unsure how to walk, she falls over a few times. Her fur moves with realism... she looks... like... Mr. Fox's body, not stylistic black figures, but solid fur, just animated. She whimpers, "H-How do you... walk... oh... geez..." Mr. Fox is nearby... she notices... he feels oddly... nice-looking? Like she is looking at a pretty man? She is confused. He looks the same, but does not feel the same. He sighs, "Hmm... I was expecting this."
She lays breathing slowly... she... she can feel everything. As her eyes see her paws below her snout. Her snout long, and full of black fur, sparking with static. Her legs... she can feel how her front paws lead to those joints, and then to her body, how her back arcs differently than before. How her legs have back-bending knees. How her claws are sharp. How her tail flutters. How her fur moves with the light breeze, she feels the breeze flow over every hair, and how her ears flutter. Moving, shifting with every sound around her. She shakes, as the sensory overload. How her nose tracks all the scents. How her belly lays on the cold rock. How she can sense... a dense... energy... pressure? Around her... a feeling... a dream-like... good... feeling around her. Like the surroundings like her. Karlen moved closer. Nudged her shoulder with his snout. As he licked her fur, and she felt it like love. As she slowly... got up, and... began to walk. It came... unusually fast? She was confused when she realized she was standing? She looked around, and saw a 4m across static-square, through it... was the real world. Looking massive through the screen. She walks over... unsure. Mr. Fox does not stop her, and watches, amused. As she looks out, and... touches the square... a... glass barrier she can feel on her paw. Through it... her body lay... eyes glowing with static... no shadowy ears, or tail. Just her body... unmoving. Eyes glowing static, static cracks covering her. She looks closer at her feet, and asks, "Is... there a mirror?"
Mr. Fox didn't hurry her. He didn't pressure. He just watched. Calculating. Emotional. Hopeful. Scared. Yet he smiled, and said, "Sure, Madam." As he lifts his paws in a human-like gesture, and claps, as a mirror appears in a flash of static. She is confused? He can still move like a human? She walks over to the mirror, and sits... it... feels weird... sitting. Her legs bent. Her front paws on the ground. Tail swishing behind her, in confused arcs. As she looks in the mirror. She sees this... self. She... is pretty... very attractive. Female. She can tell somehow. Her face is female, furred, with black-grey, similar to Mr. Fox... but lighter in tone. Her eyes were human eyes, just like Mr. Fox. But glowed with static in their pupils, and purple sparks around her eyes' edges. Her head tilted with a pulse of animalistic curiosity. As if the only thing in this world, was her own reflection. Her belly, a lighter tone, had a glowing sigil of static, with a line extended into Karlen. She asks, "What... is this... string?" Her paw passes through it. Mr. Fox says, "It's your stabilizer. It's what's keeping you looking like this, and not him, you are not a shadow fox, you still have a body in that world. Looking... half-realistic. Half-realistic... means... a connection to reality's laws." She lifts her paw, and gestures... and then... she realizes... she did a motion no fox should be capable of. Confused, she tries to stand, and it works surprisingly well. But a half-motion. She sits, and moves back fox-like. Her paws move like human arms for a moment, finger claws shifting into more hand-like structures without instruction, in an instant, as she moves them like a human's. She says, "Weird!" with a chuckle. Then a thought struck her... Mr. Fox was half-realistic too. She turned and looked at him, "Y-You... are the other tether... you have a human body in our world." Mr. Fox sighs, "Eh... kinda. Not really... let's just say... it's... unmovable."
She then... pauses... looking at the mirror. "What... happened to you?" Mr. Fox is quiet... guilty even... avoidant. As he says, "It does not matter anymore..." He seems... depressed. He shakes his head, and says, "Anyway! We should show you around. This place is just one of many. This is the area I call 'THE STUDIO!'" He gestures. "It's pretty close to the edge of this realm, barren, as you can see. But it's where I put my plays, and play my show. This area... rules are... more... loose you could say." He splits into two. "As", "you", "Can", "See." His form merges to one, grows in size, towering. "Everything in this area can change if you control." He shrinks to normal in an instant, as reality glitches. "But anyway. It also is a kind of... road between places. You walk through here, to get to other locations." He asks, "So... what do you want to see first? We could cut straight to the ritual, or we could go through a city or so. Meet the populace. We have a few hours. Hell, days if I time dilate the realm."
Ally sat, paws again firm on the ground. Her tail curled around her front legs like a cloak. She stared at Mr. Fox. She looked again at the mirror. At her own face. The new muzzle. The expressive mouth. The ears that held high at attention. She was beautiful, her mind said *look at your face!*. Her tail began to wag. She said, "I want to see the people first." Karlen chuckled, "It will be a good time. I can show you around to some places." Mr. Fox nodded, "Good! Good! Though I will give a few rules!" He counts on his paw. "First, don't get too far from Karlen. It will... destabilize your link. That... that would be BAD! Very... VERY BAD! Second..." he says, changing his fingers to two, "Stay close to me. I don't see all here. I could lose you. Though I will probably buy you a fox phone here in the city. Last rule... we need to finish your ritual today. Soon. So... I will give you an hour or two of exploration, before we must do the ritual, and must stabilize you, to be self-sustaining as a half-shadow fox. A foundational bridge of this realm to your larger, more stable world." Ally... a little concerned by that first rule, nods quietly. As her eyes track Mr. Fox. Karlen nods as well, and walks closely to her side. As Mr. Fox says, "Good, let's get going!" He walks slowly ahead of them.
As Mr. Fox trotted ahead, tail flicking like a musical conductor's baton, she found herself rising—paws moving with him, breath steady. Karlen matched her rhythm effortlessly. It reminded her of hiking in the woods as a child, when she had to follow her father's footsteps, step for step. But... it was clearly... all so new. As they walked, Karlen playfully rubbed on her fur, and she turned unsure. As he tilted his head, and licked her side. She stuttered slightly, "Is... that... normal here?" Karlen moves back slightly unsure, ears low, tail low. "It's... it is for close relationships... sorry." She sighs, ears flattening, "No, it's fine." As he rubbed on her side once more. Tail high, ears high. "Your fur is so nice! It smells lovely!" She blushes slightly, as she feels his nose in her fur, and his presence move through her. Mr. Fox chuckles lightly, "Come on you lovebirds!" They both blush, stunned. As they get annoyed, and growl yell. Karlen yells, "Hey! It's not like that you fucker!" She yells, "Fuck you, come on." Mr. Fox chuckles, as he jumps on top of an utterly oversized log, and Karlen follows. Before... Ally stutters, stops. Unsure how to jump over this massive log. Then, she tries to jump, it's too short. Karlen says, "Just... imagine... focus... confidence. If you are confident you can do it, it's more likely you can here." She nods, and closes her eyes, and then jumps, and it's high, and crazy, and she lands with... clumsiness. As she rolls comedically in the dirt, 3 rotations. Before standing up, shaking, fur haphazard, standing on edge. It's... comedic, as she calms, "Why did you need to make the path like that?" Mr. Fox smiles like a trickster at her. She deadpans. Karlen chuckles. As she shakes her body, like a dog, and her fur resets itself to a pretty state. She looks at the cartoon logic with awe. Karlen says, "Convenient, right?"
Ally walks, as she notices... the forest grow lush, with birdsongs, and bright green plants. No longer dead at all. Like a Disney movie, like *Bambi* or something. She stops, and sniffs the flowers, as her thoughts fade. It... smells nice, real. Karlen says, "The realm never felt this... real. Not in a long while." She is confused, "What do you mean?" she asks with a head tilt. As he watches everything. He says, "You see... the realm changes how realistic it is... based on... who is around. Presence. Your bodies are part-realistic, semi-realistic animation, because you have direct links to reality... your raw\... existence in a space, is causing it to look more real, more detailed in animation." A butterfly flew by, and landed on her snout, as she sniffs at it. It's... amazing. So pretty with its vibrant cartoonish colors. She sneezes as she breathes in. As it flies off. Mr. Fox sighs deeply. "This... was why I want a second tether."
Slowly... she noticed Karlen's fur turn more HD as they walked. His eyes kept their glow, but his fur had more detail, instead of a simple blob of black. He did not seem to notice. She just... watched in quiet awe as this place transformed. Then... they saw it... a city on the horizon... as they watched from afar, as the quiet black-and-white cartoon aesthetics pop with color, as a wave of transformation covers the city. Karlen whispered beside her in quiet awe, "It's never done that before. It's... usually always kind of grey here." They watch in awe, as they sit on the hill. She understands now\... why... why Mr. Fox said *I will give you a gift*... gift. She realized... Mr. Fox... had the same gift... so why... was the world so... dark before she came here? She looks at him, unsure, empathetic... toward that quiet trickster... hiding pain. She looked at Karlen... and he looked at her. Their eyes pulsed. She felt it... attraction... it... it felt strong. They both blush, and look away. She shakes her head. Mr. Fox says... tail wagging wildly, ears up, a real... real smile on his snout. "Want to see the town?" She nods, and yips happily. He smiles as well, and yips back, "I will race you!" Karlen nods, as well, and they run.
They run closer, and closer to the gate, as the run feels alive. She can feel her feet hitting the ground. Her paws digging into the earth, and Karlen following her closely. As Mr. Fox is just ahead, as then... she slowly... goes faster... and beats him by 8m, before they arrive, and slow at the entrance of the city. She smiles happily, looking around this wonderland, before remembering every single citizen was a parent, or evil person, who is going through rehab. Mr. Fox pants animalistically, all 3 do. Before they sit, and recover. As Mr. Fox says, "You win. Good job. I was holding back anyway. Welcome to town." He enters town, they follow.