Finally Free (Sphinxlock) by TheFuzzyVulpine on DeviantArt (original) (raw)
Seventy-five days came, and seventy-five days went. Ning the tigress watched the entrance to the storage room nervously, occasionally checking the time on her phone, which showed that it was still morning. She heard a cart rolling down the hallway, but not knowing whether that meant Catherine was about to come back to her only made her more nervous. A long, faint shadow was cast into the room as something was pushed into it, and Ning almost jumped towards it. It was Catherine, still a metal sphinx, but it was Catherine nonetheless! Anubis pushed the cart into the room, checking over his shoulder before closing the door. He looked at Ning, and nodded to her with a light smile. “It is time,” he stated.
Ning stepped back as streams of emerald-colored mist appeared and swirled around Catherine’s metallic form. The effects set in almost immediately as the curse that had bound the vixen as a gold and metal-paint sphinx unraveled. Her face changed ever so slightly at first, and then her cheeks became more pronounced while her muzzle narrowed and pushed out. The snake-like crown between her ears disappeared while her ears themselves went from gold and lapis to orange and white again as they became thinner and more pointed, and she began to blink and look around the room as her eyes became real eyes instead of being painted into slightly-depressed spots. The hair changed next, becoming a forest of long strands of keratin once more, and the bands that held her braid together turned from lapis to a synthetic, elastic fiber. She turned her entire head for the first time in months to look at Ning, smiling when she saw her. Once the reversion spread down her neck and shoulders, her clothes reappearing as the effect spread, Catherine was forced into a standing position, otherwise that pose she was locked into could very well have done something very bad to her spine once it came back. The toes on her front paws thinned and stretched to become fingers once more when the reversion reached that far down, and she gasped sharply as her lungs and diaphragm came back. The restoration of her heart, meanwhile, caused her head to spin for a moment. Her chest became so much smaller, shrinking down to its normal size, as did her hips and her thighs, and then her tail became longer and so much bushier when it ceased to be metal. Finally, the toes on her feetpaws regained their external claws, and Catherine stepped off of the cart.
She threw herself into Ning’s arms instantly. “Welcome back,” she said.
“Even if I have cramps like you wouldn’t believe, I’m back,” Catherine said, stretching her back with one arm in the air, held just above the elbow by the other, and her spine and shoulders cracked and popped loudly. “I may need to lay down for a while.”
“You may leave this place at your leisure,” Anubis said.
“That might be a while,” Catherine said, pulling away from Ning and laying on her back. “Being stuck in a weird pose for three months, even as a metal statue, definitely isn’t good for your back.”
“It’s so good to see you’re really back!” Karina didn’t realize that she was hugging Catherine so tightly that the vixen couldn’t breathe very well; she was just too excited, and it was made even more apparent by her drawl being lighter than usual. “I can’t believe it’s been so much time already - ten weeks and change, that’s got to be your longest stretch!” She realized that Catherine was trying to get out of her arms, and she let her down. “Sorry about that,” she said.
“You’re fine, Karina, I get how excited you are. And yes, that was my longest transformation - aside from, well, me being a fox. And a woman.” she pointed to herself.
“Ah, details. So, why don’t we sit down and talk about all that you missed?” She gestured around the park that she, Catherine, and their neighbors frequented.
“Yes, let’s do that.”