They'd rather work with you

A day after you, Harmony and Sandra got treated to a show by the two noblewomen they start asking questions. It gets to the point where Sandra even brings some of the big journals of catgirl details over to their room for them to see. Many questions revolve around the various fur colors and patterns, the average height of catgirls and so on.

They also ask about what you're aiming for, your goals, what you're doing with various nobles, the church and so on. Just from the way they're digging for answers you can tell they're really thinking about all this. Puzzling out all the details seems to excite ladies Ekaterina and Siggra. Almost all of this is done by asking questions of Sandra, Harmony or sometimes Sendrey - they seem to want all their ducks in a row before they talk to you.

After a few days mulling over all the details they finally want to talk to you. Luckily, almost everything is on hold waiting for Patrick to return, so you have the time to answer their questions, which mostly amounts to filling in all the blanks. They've assembled quite a complete picture and you only have to correct a few details here and there.

Once they're sure you're not trying to take over the world or the throne they relax a little. As you know yourself, it's always good to check the people you plan to work with for megalomaniacal tendencies. With that last road block out of the way Siggra immediately moves to a topic of great importance - what they would look like as catgirls.

Here again, with some help from your catgirls, they've managed to pick out quite a bit, but in some ways there's a lot more they could get wrong. After some corrections you offer the ring so they can see for themselves. Lady Siggra eagerly takes it and tries it out. The ring defaults to showing what she'd look like in the fur of the last catgirl to use the ring. Since that's Sendrey in this case she gets to see herself in red and the effect is rather nice.

"Oh, I certainly would have looked better as a redhead," she says, shifting her hips and flicking her hair to check out the results in the mirror.

She doesn't wear the ring long before pressing it into Lady Ekaterina's hands. Soon the taller, younger noblewoman is decked out in red as well. "No," Ekaterina says, shaking her head, "that doesn't seem right." Harmony is standing nearby, so she offers to put on the ring to change it. For a brief moment everyone gets to see what Harmony would have looked like as a human with deep black hair. Then it's back on Lady Ekaterina's finger so she can see what she looks like in Harmony's very fine black tipped white coat.

"That looks way cuter," Lady Siggra says.

Lady Ekaterina nods, quite stunned by her own appearance. "Yes, I think white looks nice. I also like these black tips."

"I can't guarantee you get exactly what you want out of the transformation. But I can always alter things afterward. As long as you aren't asking for something impossible I should be able to fix things. But we do need to decide a few other details first. You're going to need some new names. Also, are we going to send you out there," you gesture toward the main hall, "or do you stay back here in the hidden sections of the manor?"

Harmony chips in and says, "I don't see any reason for them to go into the main hall. It was a bit hard on me when I did - I was too used to wearing clothes and catgirls arrive naked except for our fur."

Both women immediately say, "Back here!" and you have to laugh.

"Awww," says Sandra, "you could have played up being super shy. It would have made you lots of friends out there. But I agree, we can always introduce you two as the 'new' catgirls whenever we want so there's no need to do it right now. Plus it's always nice to have help with all the writing and preparing of different things. Never enough hours in the day."

"We already have new names picked out," Lady Siggra says. "We knew you couldn't have two catgirls show up with our names who are close enough to our appearances." She puts an arm around Lady Ekaterina's shoulder and says, "May I introduce Calista."

Lady Ekaterina puts her arm around Siggra and says, "May I introduce Chloe."

Sandra laughs and says, "I've known three Chloes in my life and every one of them was trouble."

Lady Siggra says, "Yes, I knew a Chloe when I was younger. A ball of trouble, for sure."

"And Calista?" you ask Lady Ekaterina.

"A character from a book I liked. I want to be a bit more adventurous, so being named Calista might help remind me of that." She takes off the ring and takes a deep breath. "Speaking of which, if you can, perhaps we could handle this transformation now?"

She almost loses her nerve when you tell her the transformation must be done in the nude. But after some encouragement from Sandra and Siggra, and the reminder that life mages are considered to be somewhat like doctors - you've already seen everything - she timidly strips down.

With a little tuft of white fur you get to work, casting the spell. All seems to go well, in general. The former Ekaterina keeps her rare green eyes, though they gain a vertically split pupils. She loses an inch of height, dropping to 5'6", which is still on the taller end for a catgirl. Her body does thin down and become more lithe, save for her hips, which stay almost as large as they were before the change. She gains a hefty tail, nice and thick, to balance with. And although her breasts shrink and firm up they're still small C cups by your estimate when all is said and done. The new Calista is quite the looker.

The one thing that didn't go to plan is something you expected could be an issue - transforming a black haired woman into a white furred catgirl is not normally something you try. Instead of white fur with a black fringe the result is gray fur. That gets a disappointed look from her when she checks herself in the mirror. You press a hand to her shoulder and feel out the follicles. You give everything a good shove toward white fur, but even now her body resists. The natural black hair is particularly resilient and twists your magic sideways. You manage to introduce the black fringes, that it cooperates with easily, but the push for white fur redirects to blonde instead.

"Oh," says Calista, looking at herself in the mirror. "That's nice."

The black fringes along her ears, along the top of her shoulder, the edges of her hands and feet, at the tip of her tail and down the middle of her cleavage all add contrast to the otherwise nearly monotone golden blonde fur that now covers her body. Lady Siggra comes over and runs her fingers through Calista's fur, drawing a shiver from the freshly transformed catgirl.

With results like that Lady Siggra is soon disrobed and waiting. Brown hair to red fur is still tricky, but you've had more experience here and the transformation goes well in that sense. The newly made Chloe is far more concerned with how the transformation seems to have reduced her already small breasts and how unlike Calista's change she doesn't seem to have become any thinner at the waist.

Some magical poking and prodding helps you work out what's happened. Simply put, lady Siggra was far, far fitter than the average noblewoman. You ask about it and they both confirm that she was lifting the room's heavy chairs every day to keep in shape and that lady Siggra always enjoyed trying to keep up with the boys.

"It's no surprise you've got a solid trunk," says Sendrey. "Why would you be unhappy about that after putting so much work into making it."

"If you're staying back here then there's always time to fix it," Sandra tells her. "With enough time I bet John could stretch you out to be as tall as Calista. Or give you enough hip and chest that your 'straight' torso would look like an hourglass."

"Well, yes, why don't we wait on that. Maybe if you could just bring my chest back to the size it used to be? I don't know if it's possible, but I'd like to see what I would look like with those same black fringes Calista has."

"Hmmm," Harmony says, "Chloe is shaping up to be a foxfall."

"Yes, that's right," says Sandra, bouncing down from her perch, full of excitement. "About 5'2", amber eyes - if we add the black fringe to that red fur then we only need to make sure you're 'devious and energetic' to qualify."

"Then she's a foxfall for sure," says Calista with a big smile as you apply some magic to her roommate. Chloe's body is far more accepting of the changes, with her breasts easily returning to their original size, a large A cup, and her fur developing fine black fringes, though for Chloe these are only at her ears, around her eyes and along the tip and top of her tail.

"Well well," Chloe says, testing her knees and swishing her thick tail back and forth, "It's strange. I feel the same, for the most part. But I also feel a lot lighter."

"Try jumping straight up," says Sandra.

Chloe does and is surprised when she comes rather close to the ceiling. "Wow! You said our legs got stronger, but that's something."

Calista gives it a shot. The results aren't quite as impressive, since she wasn't as athletic as Chloe to start with, but it's obvious she's never jumped that high.

"Great, looks like you're both taking to catgirldom well," says Sandra. "Now we just have to figure out how many babies you'll carry and who's going to have them."

You distract Sandra with some aggressive ear rubs and tell Calista and Chloe, "Please ignore my baby crazy wife."

"It's better than you think," Sandra tries to argue, "I gave birth a month ago - to quintuplets! You can't even tell I was pregnant, can you?"

And with that you have two new catgirls to help you behind the scenes. All it takes is to move them into a new room.