Neni had always been fond of being lost in a good book. But despite books being made from trees, being lost in a forest wasn’t nearly as pleasant for her. Nonetheless, that was the situation she found herself in, and on a very spooky night at that. She had no idea what sorts of dangers might stalk the forest at night, nor did she particularly wish to find out. And so, she frantically kept looking for the way out of the forest, looking for any sort of sign.

Fortunately, she saw a light in the distance. A bright light. A red light. A light which couldn’t possibly happen in nature. Surely, that must be a sign of civilization! Or of a monster with glowing red eyes ready to eat her, but... she preferred to focus on that first possibility. And so, she rushed onward, at least as much as she could while still watching her step and watching out for monsters... and watching out for wild animals... and making sure not to make too much noise... so, her pace was actually rather slow.

The good news was, she made it to the light without incident. The bad news is... it wasn’t the light of a city, or anything associated with human civilization. Instead, it was the light of a small red sphere resting in the grass. A part of her was nervous about such an unfamiliar phenomenon, but a greater part of her was curious. And so she slowly, cautiously started to reach out toward the small, round gem. But before her fingers could make contact with it, it began to float upward, causing her to jump a bit in surprise.

The gem hovered in place in front of her for a moment, at eye level, before suddenly flying right at her forehead, embedding itself into it. Neni instinctively winced in pain, about to cry out before she realized... wait, she wasn’t in pain! She could see the light of the gem coming from above her eyes. She reached up hesitantly and felt her forehead, feeling the warm, smooth surface of the gem, at at least the half of it that wasn’t embedded in her forehead. She looked at the hand she felt her forehead with, seeing no blood. How was any of this possible?

But as she looked at her hand, pondering the current situation, she did see something alarming. Not blood, but white fur rapidly starting to grow on it. She gave a surprised squeaking noise, one she never heard herself make before, as she continued watching her hand, lifting up the other one to confirm that the same thing was happening to it. Her fingers shortened a bit, though still long enough to function well as fingers, and her fingernails reshaped themselves into short claws. Her hands now looked like a mix between hands and forepaws.

Fur continued growing in, not on her hands but on her arms. This fur was colored a pale blue, and while she would previously have had to pull up her sleeves to see her arms, now her sleeves were awfully loose-fitting, falling down around her elbows from gravity. And come to think of it, the rest of her clothes were starting to feel awfully loose, too. Was she starting to shrink down in size, somehow?

She began to feel warm. Very warm, in fact. It was a chilly night, yet now her sweater felt way too hot. She had a feeling she knew why, and after she took off her sweater it was quickly confirmed. On her front was thick white fur, and on the rest of her torso was blue fur. Whatever was happening to her, it seemed like it was going to affect her entire body. And while she felt like she should have been scared about that, she couldn’t quite bring herself to be.

Somehow, she had a good feeling about what was happening to her, and that feeling was confirmed when she felt something start to grow from above her rear. She looked back to see a bushy, fox-like tail growing behind her, covered in blue fur with a white tip. It was at that point that she reached up again to feel the glowing gem with her hand-paws, starting to realize exactly what was happening to her. Somehow, she was transforming into a feylight carbuncle.

Once she realized that, she no longer felt afraid of what was happening to her. Very confused, yes, but not afraid at all. In fact, she was quite eager for it, having dreamed of this very thing happening to her. She had always longed to be a cute little feylight carbuncle, and now her dream was finally coming true!

She let go of her pants, letting them fall down to her ankles. She lifted up her legs, which were now also covered in blue fur, to get her feet out of her now-far-too-big shoes and out from under her pants, just in time to watch them being overtaken by white fur as they grew longer, taking the shape of cute bunny-like hindpaws, complete with a cute little claw at the end of each toe.

She was so distracted by her cute new hindpaws that she nearly failed to notice the feeling of fur growing on her neck. Her long hair began to recede, becoming blue fur on the back of her head. At the same time, fur was forming all over her face, the upper part blue while the lower part of her face, below her nose, was colored white. Her nose reshaped itself into a cute pink cat-like nose as it and her mouth shaped themselves into a short muzzle. She felt her ears rising up to the top of her head, growing long and pointed as they were covered in fur, blue on the outside and white on the inside of the ears. And then the top of her head was covered in blue fur, completing her transformation, at which point her gem stopped glowing.

She gave an excited squeaking noise - she was still perfectly capable of speech just like any feylight carbuncle, albeit much higher-pitched than before, but a squeak would do just fine here - and began to do a little happy dance in place, throwing in some more happy squeaking. But after a bit of that, she heard the sound of a snapping twig, stopping her dance cold. She didn’t know what had caused the sound, be it a big scary beast or her own happy dancing, but either way it reminded her that she was still lost and alone in a scary forest at night. Not only that, but at a mere two feet tall, everything around her looked so much bigger and scarier than before, even with her new eyes being able to see better in the dark than her previous human eyes. She had to find safety!

Just then, she heard a squeak. Looking toward the source of the noise, she saw another feylight carbuncle, a green one, peeking out from a hatch in the ground, disguised to look indistinguishable from the surrounding terrain when closed. “You sure are making a lot of noise out there! Don’t you know there are predators about?”

“Oh, um...” Neni said, both scared at the prospect of being eaten and embarrassed at her lapse in judgment.

“Come, hurry! You’ll be safe in here!” the green feylight said, opening the hatch wider. Neni nodded, then went inside, the green feylight closing the hatch behind her.

The green feylight led the way through the tunnels. She had never visited a feylight home before, and despite her best efforts she could hardly find any information on them. In fact, she may have been the first human, or at least former human, to ever see one. Neni had heard that feylight carbuncles hid themselves well, out of fear of being hunted for their gems, so it was no surprise that information about their homes was so scarce. But miraculously, here she was.

In a way, it reminded her of a mix of dwarven tunnels and rabbit burrows. They were simple tunnels made from a mix of dirt and stone, with a bit of wood to reinforce it. Adorning the ceiling of the tunnels were small, crystal-shaped magic lights, just bright enough to give off a comfortable light level. The tunnels branched in many places, and along the way there were many rooms, some with doors and some not. She had to guess that at least several dozen feylight carbuncles lived here.

Some of the rooms Neni saw while following the green feylight were quite a wonderful glimpse of feylight life. She never knew that feylights would have a library and would never have guessed it would have so many books. Another room was a play area filled with tubes, ropes to swing on, and what appeared to be either elaborate wooden statues for decoration or fancy wooden jungle gyms. The dining area was simple yet elegant, with nice-looking low tables surrounded by cushions of various colors. She wondered whether the colors of the cushions had any significance to them, or if it was just for the sake of making the dining area prettier.

Finally, they arrived at their destination, a big lounge area filled with cushions, low tables, and even some fancy comfy chairs and couches next to relatively large crystal lights, presumably for reading by. The green feylight looked at her. “Wait here for a bit, okay? I’ll be right back.”

Neni nodded, and with that, the green feylight carbuncle walked off. Neni laid down on the couch, relaxing. Her time in the scary forest at night, despite being so recent, seemed like a distant memory. She knew she was safe here, and she had a strong feeling she would be able to stay, an idea she found positively wonderful. Indeed, she felt right at home here.