SRNU - Box Of Delights

By Hedonism

Sorry about the in-jokes, it helps if you read the, you know, original stories :)

-------------------------------------------------

Mary flapped through the air, wings beating strongly as she dodged the midmorning heavy traffic, then lowered until she was out of the fast lane. Now able to just glide economically, her sharp falcon head looked out over the range of shops.

She saw what she was looking for, a promising looking curio shop. Maybe they would stock something that could help. She didn’t have very much money left from her grocery trip, where the cost of being magically filled with food proved more expensive than she hoped – probably was a bit indulgent to be given the memory of a few too many cakes.

Spells ‘R’ Not Us? she thought. Reverse advertising or something? Never mind.

She landed upon the pavement and slipped a steel ring from one of her gnarled talons. She shuddered briefly and her form melted out of it’s falcon shape, grew, collated into that of a middle aged female. She wore a simple dark red dress that sparkled with it’s own inner enchantment, just like everyone else’s. Everyone else human enough to wear clothes anyway.

Mary walked towards the door, limping. Grunting with annoyance, she looked down at the giant talon that was supposed to be her left foot. She regretted buying that ring – it did this nearly every month, regular as clockwork. Mary had done as much as her metaphysical engineering could do but it just never ran properly. Best take it in to be repaired again before it broke down permanently.

She opened the door and stepped in, her limp going as she was well used to compensating for this – bloody transport ring.

"Hello miss," said the shop keeper, a young girl.

"Hello," said Mary casually. So is there anything you can do to help me?"

The little girl looked puzzled. "Could you tell me what’s up? Oh, sorry. I don’t think I’ve seen you here before. I’m Donna," she said, prompting Mary to introduce herself.

"Err, yes," said the customer, stammering. "I.. I’m Mary…" She felt an uneasy, fearful twinge. It didn’t sound like the shopkeeper knew her name, without being asked! And, oh God, she didn’t know what was wrong just by her coming into the shop! And she had a name!"

Mary looked around warily, trying to shelve these creepy thoughts. There had to be a perfectly reasonable, magical explanation.

"I’m… looking for a curio. My husband is getting a bit… distant from me. I think it’s mid-life or something. He’s starting to look at younger women. He’s buying young and handsome alternative forms, but he doesn’t put them on for me."

The young shopkeeper nodded sympathetically.

"I don’t want to lose him. Maybe you have something that could make me into an adorable little pet? So, you know, he could find someone else but remain faithful to me as well?"

"Well, I don’t think you should resign yourself to that so quickly. Hold on a second…" The young girl walked out from behind the counter and started to stalk the shelves.

As Mary waited uneasily, a handsome man, an anthropomorphic kangaroo, looked around furtively. While the girl was away from sight, he slipped a jade figurine into a pouch in his stomach. While he shivered at the cold thing going in there he thought of the cute irony that people wouldn’t think of searching a male kangaroo for a female’s pouch.

The girl returned to the counter with a silky box of chocolates. Mary brightened.

"Oh, splendid. What will that turn me into if I eat it?"

"Oh no, Mary. These are not for you."

"Ahhh!" smiled the customer, knowingly. "If they turn him into my pet, he will have to stay loyal to me!"

The girl looked surprised.

"Oh no, these won’t turn him into anything."

There was silence. A creeping form of dread stole over Mary.

"What!?"

She looked around with fear. Then opened the box quickly, and popped a chocolate into her mouth desperately.

A tingle of her flesh melting and reshaping into a bizarre new form resolutely refused to happen. Her bones didn’t crack and disintegrate painfully into different supportive structures. Mary shrieked with horror.

"It’s just a… normal, b, box of chocolates!"

She looked down at her fingers. They did nothing special!

Mary backed away from the shopkeeper.

"What are you not doing to me!"

The girl advanced to her, patiently.

"These chocolates have the power to make him feel a bit guilty of growing distant. Soon he may rethink your changing relationship, maybe he’ll buy you gifts, spend more time with a more thoughtful wife…"

Mary staggered backwards. This was too much to take in. It was so strange, so very wrong! And yet, it did make sense. If she could stand the strange concept, this not-magic could really save her marriage!

"Think about other things you could give him. It doesn’t need to be expensive – just little tokens. Roses, for example."

"But… but plant transformation spells are expensive!"

"Then normal, ordinary roses," said the shopkeeper, her voice patient but strangely unnatural. "You don’t need to become a rosebush, you don’t need to change him into one to keep him rooted in your garden forever, you just need to give him one so he’ll look at it and remember you."

Mary looked around the shop. Yes, there was a shelf full of beautiful flowers, all next to the window and in jars. Many were wilting a little as if… as if not magically preserved! Everything here, were a little dusty, but apart from being pretty, were pretty unremarkable. All completely mundane!

The customer ran from the shop, screaming. But she did at least leave with her chocolates. She slipped the ring onto her toe, stalled the engine twice, but eventually magaged to transform. She was a dot in the sky after an impressively short time.

The young girl looked from the front door, shaking her head, and smiled a little. Then suddenly a beeping noise from behind made her swing around.

A panicky kangaroo looked at her, then at two bizarre metal constructions at the sides of the door he had just gone through, lights on them flashing.

"Sir, if you would please come with me to the counter?"

"Wha… how did you know?" gasped the kangaroo, and gulped with embarrassment at his own implicating himself. Of course she had probably already read his mind.

There was a security guard at the counter, a slightly fat, balding man in a uniform. The kangaroo was larger, but he knew instinctively that the guard would be able to turn into a massive dragon or similar if required.

"I notice your… pouch, is protected against all forms of magical scrying, sir. Could you please give me whatever’s in there? I don’t want to go in there myself," she said, smiling grimly.

The kangaroo opened his pouch and pulled out the now pleasantly warm bits and pieces.

"How did you know I had them?!"

"All my items have a security tag on." She grinned horribly at the kangaroo, and motioned at the detectors on either side of the door. The kangaroo almost whined.

"You know that you could be prosecuted for theft?" said the security guard, with a curiously high voice. Like the girl, there was something very weird with him. A complete lack of weirdness! They were normality strained and distilled, purified! There was nothing sinister about the guard, there was not a trace of hidden , immense power in the girl.

"I… I know my rights!" stammered the kangaroo. "You can make me into n- nothing smaller than… a rabbit, or something, something ironic like a rat or replacement statuette!"

"If you would be as good as to become a human again, sir, I have alerted the police. The security cameras have filmed everything."

The kangaroo looked up with naked fear and paranoia. To the very edge of his enhanced hearing was a soulless electronic whir.

He hopped away as if his tail had been run over.

"Umm, Donna, you don’t mind if I don’t go after him? I’m feeling a bit of my, uhh, trouble."

The shopkeeper nodded.

"I don’t think I’ll press charges. He’ll be great publicity, and a good warning."

Two terrified shoppers so far, two more lives introduced to the sparkle and strangeness, and wonder of non-magic. It was a good day so far.

By Hedonism