Finally got to meet Newenglander in person! He's a totally sweet guy. =) He asked me to revisit the first character I ever drew for him (sorry for the lousy cellphone pic). You can find the TF of this girl waaaaaay back in my gallery. Though as a bit of a treat, I found the story snippet I wrote to go along with it. =) Enjoy!

Carrie posed before the full-length mirror in the models’ trailer, admiring how she looked in the new outfit Wardrobe had given her.  The crop top showed off her bust to an advantage and exposed her flat belly, and the short skirt emphasized the length of her legs.  She wore trendy sandals on her feet, in keeping with the ‘sporty beach girl’ look her employers had decided on for the current shoot.  Carrie enjoyed it fully, especially when she thought of how close the entire outfit had come to doing the shoot in Alaska rather than sunny Mexico.  The marketing team for Husky™ brand energy bars had decided half-clad models frolicking on a tropical beach would be more attractive than having them bundled in furs somewhere in the arctic.  For once, Carrie heartily agreed with them. 

With a grin, she flopped belly down on the wide plush couch.  Beth and Kelsie, the other girls on the shoot, were off shopping with one of the local guides.  That left Carrie alone in the trailer…  along with the goodie basket from Husky™ that their manager had dropped off this morning.  She pawed through the basket, looking for more blueberry flavored bars.  They were her favorite.  Beth had warned her that she would put on five pounds in no time flat if she continued to wolf down the energy bars whenever she could get them.  Carrie had pointed out that the bars were probably healthier than the copious amounts of Mexican food the whole crew had been living on, and that all the time they spent jogging and posing and pretending to play volleyball in the hot sun surely burned off any extra calories from snacking. 

She selected a fresh bar from the basket, stripped off the shiny foil wrapping and blissfully munched on sweet blueberry confection.  There was a tang to the flavor she couldn’t quite identify, but particularly enjoyed.  Carrie finished the bar, then yawned and stretched, feeling sleepy.  Since it was their day off, she felt less guilty about taking a nap at midday.  Beth and Kelsie wouldn’t be back until late afternoon to dress for dinner.  Smiling to herself, Carrie wiggled into a comfortable position and dropped off to sleep. 

A strange tingling feeling permeated Carrie’s dreams, drawing a faint frown on her sleeping face. Slowly she came awake, rubbing at her ears, which were tingling the most. Her frown deepened. Was it possible that her ears were larger than they had been? And… pointed? What? Her mouth felt funny too. Carrie ran her tongue over her teeth, noting they felt sharper and more prominent than usual. When she tried to sit up, a wave of dizziness washed over her. ‘Ugh,’ she thought, ‘I must be coming down with something.’ She slumped back against the couch. *‘Maybe the crew didn’t treat the water as well as they thought they had. Maybe if I just sit here for a bit, it will pass.’ *

Even as the thought crossed her mind, another wave of weakness left her gasping, followed by a series of muscle cramps that nearly made her spasm off the couch. The tingling in her face had spread to her hands and feet, and the base of her spine. Groaning, Carrie raised her hands to her face, and then stared at them in shock. Her nails had grown to resemble small claws, and the polish was splitting off of them. Dark patches of toughened skin, like small pads, had appeared on her palms and fingertips. A glance at her feet showed a similar condition. Yelping in fear, Carrie tried to jump off the couch just as another wave of cramps struck. She fell to her hands and knees, whimpering in pain as the tingle at the base of her spine intensified. Was… Was something growing there? To make matters worse, there was a strange fuzzy growth beginning to crop up on her hands and feet, and spreading quickly up her arms. She watched in horror as it thickened before her eyes.

Carrie managed to drag herself across the trailer to the mirror. She pushed herself unsteadily to her feet, leaning heavily on a chair, and took stock of the strange changes her body was undergoing. The bones in her legs and feet suddenly shifted their positions in a manner that made her stomach lurch. Her thighs widened, and between that and the strange thing growing from her backside, the tight fabric of her skirt strained and began to tear. The ping of strained material giving way made her look down again. The straps on the one designer sandal that had remained on her foot had snapped from the tension her now much larger paw had put on them. Carrie whimpered again, and turned her attention back to the mirror. The bones in her face pushed forward, stretching her nose impossibly big even as it changed shape. The fine down of fuzz covered her entire body now, and was rapidly getting thicker and longer. Her ears had moved up on her head, and were beginning to move, laying back against her skull in connection with her distress. The strange growth on her spine now proved to be a tail, and was a full, thick, and bushy as a heavy furred dog’s.

‘Dog… Oh my god!’ Cassie swayed and clung to the chair, the claws on her hands tearing the padding. ‘I’m turning into… Into a dog! Into a…’ * The change was complete enough now for her to recognize the kind of dog, and a chill ran down her spine, raising the fur there. *‘Into a husky.’ Pale blue eyes stared across the trailer to the company logo tacked to the door. She slumped to the ground again, barely noticing as the rags of her skirt fell away. Her top was nearing the same state rapidly. Carrie was in too much shock. The colors and pattern of fur in the logo now covered her own body. Her face resembled that of the dog in the picture. She looked from the picture to the bowl of energy bars on the coffee table, remembering a chance conversation with one of the guys on the setup crew. The company behind Husky™ bars had been impatient to get their product on the market, and had rushed it hastily through FDA screening by less than honest means. She hadn’t cared at the time, but the consequences of that move had come back to bite her… literally. At least the changes seemed to have stopped, finally.

Carrie slowly pushed herself to her feet, wobbling as she fought to balance her new body. Her ragged crop top tore the rest of the way from the strain of her wider shoulders and she caught it before it fell to the floor. She stared at herself, caught halfway between human and animal, and at the shredded rags of her clothing on the trailer floor. The only recognizable thing about her was the shoulder length auburn hair had stayed the same. Two thoughts strayed into her mind as she gaped at her reflection. The first was ‘What am I going to do?’ and the second was an ironic *‘Wardrobe is going to kill me for wrecking those clothes.’ *She sighed, went back to the couch and curled back up on it. The change had left her too exhausted to think about anything but sleep. Maybe the world would make sense when she woke up again.

This is the follow-up pic. As you can see, the world did *not* make sense when Carrie woke up again. ;)