He went right to her bookshelf searching for his Braldron IX video game cartridge that he was almost sure his sister had swiped from his room the last time she had the house alone to herself. Then again maybe his mom or dad finally carried through on their threat to ground him from his favorite video game after that prank he pulled last week on Jimmy Nellings, the little eight year old twirp down the block. Sticking gum on the kid's bicycle seat. It was only in retaliation for the little brat having done the same thing to Danny the previous day but even so the rotten little tattle tail, Jimmy, went and told Danny's mom about it and not too long after that the video game cartridge mysteriously vanished.
Penny's room was where mom and dad usually hid stuff they took from Danny when he was on restriction or grounded for one reason or another. It seemed like the last place on Earth a sixteen year old boy would ever look was in a pink painted room with a frilly white canopy bed and a closet full of girl's clothes, but Danny had wised up and discovered this was where mom and dad liked to hide his latest video game cartridge when he was grounded.
Sure enough "Braldon IX" was right there hidden behind a row of dolls and stuffed toy animals on the top shelf. He'd be able to play his video game after all but he'd have to remember to return it back to its hiding place before mom and dad got back home or he'd be double grounded for sure.
Danny wondered what other things were hidden in this room. A room he'd only been in a few times before and even then, only briefly. The smell of perfume and baby powder and skin moisturizer in here was pretty overwhelming sometimes. Even now he was almost ready to gag at how much hair spray lingered in the air in his big sister's room.
He decided to go ahead and open a window in here to let the place air out a bit. He pulled back the frilly white curtains and pulled back the heavy iron latch and slid the window open. Looking down over the red ceramic tiled roof from Penny's window, Danny saw the driveway below and glanced up through the still thick morning fog and saw the hazy blob of light that was the sun. The fog wouldn't burn off at least until around lunch time so he'd have plenty of time to play his video game before heading off to the park to play some baseball with his friends.
The cool morning air was a welcome relief to his perfume choked lungs and he just stood there for a long while just taking in deep breaths of fresh air and glancing about through the fogbank at the shadowy traces of cars parked across the street.
After a few minutes he turned his attention back to his immediate surroundings. Now seemed like the most opportune time to more fully explore his sister's room and see if there might be other things hidden in here that were his. If anything maybe he'd find an old diary of hers and get to have a chuckle or two reading it.
Her dresser was chocked full of girls clothes. Panties, stockings, bras, designer jeans and socks among other things. The stuff in here was mostly junk she had outgrown or things maybe out of style or things she just plain hadn't bothered packing to take with her to college. There were a few training bras in there which made Danny chuckle a bit. It was clear evidence his big sister was a bit of a pack rat as far as clothes were concerned. Her other bras in the dresser drawer were of much bigger size than the training bras.
Finding no secret stash of diaries or anything of any real interest in her dresser, he turned his attention to her closet. He opened the big French doors and was greeted with a wall of dresses and skirts hanging there all scrunched up and tightly packed together. Below was a sea of shoes set neatly beside one another in perfect pairs from pumps to flats to tennis shoes and here was even further evidence his sister was a pack rat for many of these shoes obviously no longer fit her but were kept here with the others just the same.
Her army of shoes were so well organized in tight formation that Danny dared not disturb them for fear his neat freak of a sister might discover someone had been snooping through her closet.
He saw a stack of cardboard boxes off to the right of all the shoes and turned his attention to that. He carefully reached in and lifted out a box. It was rather heavy and he nearly dropped it as he stumbled back from the closet and finally set it down on the end of the bed.
The box contained some old winter clothes. Mostly mittens, scarves, and sweaters but at the bottom of the box were some books and even a couple heavy empty flower pots. Nothing of much interest to Danny though, so he went and fetched another box from the closet. This one had some clothes from when his sister was in early grade school. Probably third or fourth grade. He wondered why she kept these at all.
He grabbed for the last box in the closet but it was too heavy to lift. He decided to go ahead and drag it through the sea of girl's shoes and face what consequences he may face later on.
He pulled the box out, dragging it out to the center of the room and opened it up for a look inside.
Inside were bags and bags of garden and river rocks and sea shells. He remembered his sister used to collect them years ago as a sort of a hobby before she got older and discovered boys and then that became her hobby, as the many posters on the walls in her room could attest.
He poured out a bag of seashells on the floor and discovered there were some coins and trinkets mixed in along with some old jewelry. That got his curiosity up and he emptied another bag of shells and found much the same. He emptied them all out one by one onto the white carpet making a horrible mess of sand and debris crumbs he'd later have to vacume up to cover his trail.
That was all there was, though. Just some seashells, river rocks, and jewelry. He picked up a big pink and white conch shell and held it to his ear to listen to the sound of the ocean. The shell rattled a bit as he moved it so he shook it and out into the palm of his hand dropped a tiny silver ring.
The ring had a small pink coral stone on top and strange faded writing along the inside of the band. The ring felt little cold to the touch. Almost nearly as cold as if he'd held an ice cube instead. The pink coral stone almost seemed to glow a bit through the tiny little cracks in the rock. He read the inscription aloud to himself,"For a little girl or if you're not, a gift of girlness from within this rock."
There were little hearts and flowers etched along the inner band bedide the strange words.
Danny was about to set the ring down but wondered where in the world his sister had obtained it from. "Certainly not a gift from mom or dad," he pondered aloud. "Or Grandma or Grandpa or even Uncle Lou."
He wondered if maybe the ring had been in the shell all along and his sister never even knew about it or if it had been part of the jewelry dumped in the shell bag with the conch shell. He chuckled as he re-read the part about "a gift of girlness from within this rock." He knew it implied that if a boy were to wear the ring he'd change into a girl but that was such an impossibility that he ruled it out right away as a joke. Even so he slipped the ring on his finger to validate to himself that it really was a joke.
Whatever boundary of nature or twist of fate or law of all that exists in the world which keeps a girl a girl and a boy a boy and keeps them apart throughout life in seperate and distinctive roles was lifted the moment Danny Sweet put that ring upon his finger. For instantly and even before the ring curse began transforming his body, Danny felt as though he'd passed through an invisible barrier, leaving his maleness instantly trapped on the other side and a strange new feeling of femininity overwhelmed his senses.
The ground trembled and a supernatural breeze blew upward from the carpet, scattering the seashells and rocks all about the room in disarray. A tingle in Danny's tummy grew downward through his belly to his crotch at the same time his maleness in his crotch shriveled and pulled upward and inward to meet and mysteriously conjoin with the tingling force deep within. A giddy weakness overcame him unlike any he'd ever known before and he rapidly shrank down and changed into a little girl - clothes too, for they were not exempt from whatever strange spell was doing this to the poor boy, and then, just like that, it was over.
Danny Sweet was now a little girl.
She sat there unconsciously tugging at the ring, trying to remove it. An action she began the moment the terrifying changes began to take place but it was useless. The ring would not budge from her finger. It was stuck there somehow by magic. It was stuck with her and she was stuck with it.
She couldn't help but cry at the helplessness of the situation. She was trapped a little girl somehow by this spooky, crazy old ring and took all her boyness away.
She pressed her little hands against the sides of her face, feeling her smooth soft pudgy little cheeks. Then she ran her fingers up through her auburn locks and glanced from shoulder to shoulder in amazement at the puffy white sleeves of her play dress. She took note of her shiny black flats she wore on frilly white sock covered feet. Her tears stopped as her fear of what had happened to her was replaced with feelings of amazement and an incredible sense of inner peace. Being torn so suddenly from raging teenage male hormones and dropped off in a little girl's body like this was an oddly relaxing sensation but none the less eerie going from somewhat horny teenaged boy to suddenly having absolutely no sex drive whatsoever.
Whatever magic did this to her left her memories completely intact except somehow severed or severely impaired Danny's mental connection to being biologically naturally attracted to girls. Now that she was a girl, and a little one at that, barely five years old from Danny's guess, her mental pathways, at least as far as sexual development was concerned, had somehow been reset - nullified. Perhaps it was part of the ring's design to protect and ensure the magic ring wasn't misused by some sick demented pervert. With sexual preference turned back to zero Danny would have to decide all over again... when the time was right and she was old enough of course.
She sat there for awhile, just tapping the ring stone, just tapping it lightly to see if it was done with whatever it had to do still, and then she finally stood up.
She ignored the knocking on the door, for what could she do or say to anyone that might be out there? If it was a relative or friend of the family she certainly would have been informed by mom or dad about it before they went away on vacation, and if it was one of Danny's school friends, she wasn't so sure she wanted them to see her like this. Not that they'd ever believe this darling little girl was ever a teenaged boy anyway.
She walked over to her sister's wall mirror and saw her new self for the first time. She was a cute little blue eyed, auburn haired little girl in a white play dress and shiny black flats with little brass buckles. She thought that perhaps she was five or six years old but even so she still felt pretty short for that age. She walked up to her sister's door and presently noticed she could stand fully underneith the doorknob with a few inches room to spare. Her legs weren't all wobbly like a two or three year old. She felt she was probably four or five or maybe she was just a little bit short for her age.
The room was a bit of a mess with the seashells and river rocks and jewelry scattered all over the floor so she spent a little while cleaning that all up and putting the boxes back in the closet. It was alot more difficult putting away heavy boxes as a little kid, so the job of filling the boxes was done mostly on the spot right in there in the closet. With this task finally over with, she vacumed the room to hide the evidence of all the broken pieces of sea shells she'd otherwise have left behind.
Pushing a vacume from such a small height was a weird experience for Danny but she managed as best she could under the circumstances, and luckily enough the mess wasn't nearly as bad as she thought.
She put the vacume away and left her big sister's room. There was no way she was going to tackle closing that window way up high in there without taking a break after all this work. So she went downstairs and watched some television for awhile and ate some cereal.
There was a knock on the front door again and this time she was curious enough to go and see who it was.
She didn't open the door, nor could she so easily, for the chain lock was pulled shut and far out of her reach now. So she climbed up on the couch and had a peek through the front room drapes.
It was a tough angle from here to the porch but what Danny could see there was a man and a woman out there. The man wore a black suit and black top hat, and the woman wore a gray dress with a white shawl pulled around her. It was still a bit foggy and cool outside.
The couple were talking and Danny hopped down off the couch and ran over to the little mail slot at the front door and lifted it a crack to listen.
"She's in there all right," the gentleman said annoyed. "And she'd better open the door if she knows what's good for her."
"Oh Merlok, you shouldn't be so impatient," the woman said trying to calm down the man. "She'll tend to it when she's ready."
"That's not hardly the point here, Jana," Merlok said rapping his cane on the door once more. "If we don't get the essence soon it will spoil and this will have been all for nothing. Years and years of waiting and for what? So the essence should spoil before I should get my hands on it and harvest it?"
"Calm yourself, Merlok," Jana urged. "If the ring is undamaged we have a full week before the essence goes bad."
Merlok grumbled and said,"Safety first, however. I do not wish to take chances. This ring has gone missing for a number of years, as you recall, and now that its been activated again I wish to handle this with the utmost urgency."
Jana suggested,"Use a spell and unlock the door, though I do sense that the girl is nearby, perhaps even listening to us even as we speak."
"My darling little wife," the man said. "Perhaps it hasn't occurred to you where we are at this very moment but if I go around using magic on everything it's liable to rouse suspicion."
"We are still concealed by the fog bank," the woman pointed out.
"Right as ever, my dear but there are other sorcerers who might be keen to know why a spell such as this was cast in a restricted area. As it is, I will probably lose my spell casting license for the teleportation spell that brought us here."
"Then what's your fear, oh great husband of mine?" Jana teased. "Open up, little girl inside. We know you're listening. Open the door like a good little girl and let us in."
Merlok shoved the tip of his cane through the mail slot and peered inside. "By Jupiter, she is!" he exclaimed turning back to his wife and adding. "You must have ears like an eagle, my dear, and eyes like a fox, for there she is!"
"That's eyes like an eagle, and ears like a... well nevermind," Jane said. "Just get her to open the door now, that's all."
"Let us in, like a good little dear," the man said to Danny. "And let's discuss this situation before anything more happens to you."
From what Danny heard though she was a little too fearful of trusting the couple. After a few more moments consideration she demanded,"Only if you change me back into a boy!"
Danny fearfully peered out at them through the brass mail slot.
The woman gently brushed in front of her husband and knelt down and turned her head sideways for a look inside and said with an amused smile,"She's got pretty blue eyes, just like you said she would, Merlok."
The man shoved his wife aside and rapped his cane upon the door and peered in through the mail slot. He had big gray eyes and a big brown bushy moustache. "You'll remain a girl for good if you don't get this door open this instant, young lady!" he impatiently burst out. "Now open the door!"
"But I can't reach the chain," Danny cried back.
"Ultimuto relokchantre... fay!" the man shouted and the chain slipped free of the latch and the door handle turned on its own and the door opened a notch. Before Danny could react or run away the man and woman forced themselves in the house and grabbed hold of the frightened little girl and picked her up and set her upon the couch.
The gentleman in black opened up a black leather briefcase he'd been carrying and pulled out a strange gadget about the size of a small shoebox. The gadget had lots of brass gears and glass tubes and a row of miniature glass jars screwed on underneith. He made haste with the task he set out to do and immediately fastened the odd looking device to the ring upon Danny's finger.
The gadget seemed to know what to do without any sort of activation required or anything, for there were no visible buttons to control it with. A tiny metal pin shot out and jabbed the coral stone atop Danny's ring. The pin chopped a few times until securely breaking through and latching on tightly as a mechanical pump just above started churning wickedly up and down on its axle and drawing a dark blue fluid up and through the metal pin and in through a network of tiny glass pipes.
The process took no more than a minute and when it was done the gentleman unfastened the gadget from Danny's ring and set it back in the briefcase. "In case you were wondering, my darling little girl, I have extracted and secured your former male essense which I will use at my leisure to further carry out my experiments," he said and plucked off the magic ring from her finger and put it in his inner coat pocket for safe keeping. "Under normal circumstances I would offer you adequate payment as compensation for your... losses... but since this particular ring had been stolen from me there is little I am willing to do to help you. However... my wife would never let me just toss you out into the street like this so until we can find a more suitable home for you it has been decided that for the sake of your safety and in your best interest, we will take you in under our own roof for the time being."
Without further discussion the gentleman waved his hand and said a few magic words and the three of them teleported away and arrived someplace else.
The further adventures of Danny Sweet who has been transformed into a little girl through the aid of a magic ring.
Merlok stuck a brass key in the side of a large iron handle jutting out from the floor and with some effort he pulled the old rusty lever down a notch with a loud squeak and a clank and clatter of chains in another chamber somewhere beneith their feet. Cracks in the walls and floor and ceiling around them briefly glowed red and faded away.
"Magic draining shield," Jana explained to their new little guest.
"Oh," said Danny gulping nervously.
"Protects us from nosey magic users who might follow our teleportation path," Merlok added pulling the key out from the side of the crank handle and placing it securely in his vest pocket. He gave the handle a pat on the side for good measure and they walked out of the room.
"No magic works at all in this place unless Merlok deactivates the spell ward," Jana said taking the little girl by the hand.
~Just great,~ thought Danny. With Merlok having posession of Danny's male essence stored away in his briefcase, and the magic ring tucked away in his coat pocket, and now that spell ward in place, Danny had almost no hope at all of ever changing back to his normal male self.
Merlok wandered around the corner and down some stairs leaving Jana to lead Danny along a different route to another destination. "We're not going with him?" Danny asked worriedly.
"Oh my, no, dear," Jana said sweetly. "That wouldn't do at all to have you see where Merlok stores the essence.
~And the warding key and the magic ring too,~ thought Danny gulping and nervously fiddling with the edges of her dress as they walked along the dusty old passageway.
Jana led the girl up some stairs and into a pantry leading out into a kitchen. Jana paused momentarily to close and lock the pantry door behind them and said,"You're not allowed ever to go back down there. Understand? It's off limits and too dangerous for little girls anyway. So you'd best not try breaking in there. This lock is a bit old but I don't think those little hands of yours are capable of prying it open. Even so, I'm warning you now, hun, to keep out. We'll get you sorted out and into a new home soon if all goes well. Now let's show you to your room."
Danny was led out of the kitchen and through a vast living room and up a long curved red carpeted marble staircase to an alcove above where there were three doors. Jana took out a small silver key and unlocked one of them and led the girl inside.
It was a room all set up for a little girl but a room that was a bit dusty and riddled with cobwebs. Jana said,"We haven't used this room in quite some years but aside from some dusting up I think it suits your new form quite well, don't you? There's a pretty little white canopy bed built for a cute little princess just like yourself. And over there beside the closet mirror is a fancy red dressing table just your size, and that door beside it leads into your own private bath, and here just in the far corner is your toy chest, and there on those shelves beside it are some more toys, and your dolls of course. There's some children's books on that other bookshelf over there if you're interested. You may find the reading material is a bit too juvinile compared to what you may be used to but Merlok has some pills that'll help with that and keep you acting your age and tone down your knowledge to proper little girl levels. We'll get you started on those pills soon enough, but for now let me show you this armoire with more of your clothes, and over here is a second closet - and look - it connects out to the hall. Oh but we keep that door locked usually. And over here we have... well that's the dumbwaiter - that goes down to the kitchen. We'll send you up some snacks on that once in awhile if you're a good little girl and do what you're told."
While impressive as this little tour was, Danny was growing ever more worried about becomming trapped this way in this new envorinment. So she tugged on Jana's dress to get her attention. "But when do I change back to normal?" she asked.
Jana smiled at the exuberant attitude of the young child and bent down to grab hold of the girl's nose for a quick wiggle. "You're a cutie-pie, aren't you?" she declared more than asked. "Don't you understand my dear? Sweetie if the magic ring is off your finger then the ring curse has completed its course and bound you fully to your new form. The change can not be reversed and what's more your male essence has already been drained and stored safely away. You'll no more be a boy again now than change yourself into even a kitten. Your form is bound fully to your new self. You can not change back, hun. Not even if Merlok wished it. You'll only ever be the girl you are now or the woman you'll some day grow up to be. The spell that did this protects you from further transformation magic. It is both a blessing and a curse. For not even Merlok could change you into a toad if he wished. So it protects you but it also prevents you from ever changing back again."
"But the magic draining field," Danny protested. "Wouldn't that affect the curse?"
"Hmmm... That I'm not too sure on, hun," Jana admitted thoughtfully stroking her chin. "However you're really in no position to argue this anymore, in fact it's one of the house rules I'll be going over with you next. You are not to talk to anyone at all about changing back to your former self, nor are you allowed to even mention you were ever anything but the little girl you now are. Is that understood?"
"But... but..."
"No buts," Jana said wagging a finger at the girl. "Now the pills we'll be giving you will help with some of this but you really must understand, honey, that this is all for your own good. It's really for the best that you accept things and learn to move forward with your new life. There really is no going back now, hun. You're a little girl and as far as anyone's concerned from now on you've always been that way. Now we're going to provide you with a new home - I mean after this one here - and we'll want you to be on your best behavior."
A little brass bell rang over by the dumbwaiter and the platform inside squeaked as it rose up to a stop and on it was a silver tray with some milk and cookies, and a single pink pill.
"Merlok is a bit ahead of schedule I see," Jana said surprised but none the less relieved to discover Danny's first pill already there. "Here, honey. Some milk and cookies, but first take your behavior changing medicine. It's okay. It's not poison. Go on and take it. That a girl. Good girl. Now drink it down with your milk. That'a girl. It'll help you act and think more like a little girl. Now you go ahead and finish off your milk and cookies and we'll get a maid up here to clean and dust this old room out for you."
Jana left and Danny spit out the pill she'd kept tucked sneakily away just under her tongue. Some of it had already dissolved like cotton candy and had entered into her system and making her feel rather giddy and in a bit of a mischivous mood. ~Wouldn't it be fun to really see what this does?~ she thought to herself and with that she plopped the pill back in her mouth and swallowed it down with a big gulp full of milk.
The pill went to work on her mind with remarkably instant results and artificially lowered her intellect to that of a four year old girl in a matter of a few moments time. It made her feel worked up and bursting full of the energy of a child and at the same time provided an enormous security blanket which gave her the feeling that being a little girl wasn't so bad after all and that this way certainly felt better than what she was before. She still remembered who she was and who she'd been but the drug was blocking out things and making her feel all good and weird and wonderful inside.
She picked up one of the children's books off the bookshelf and marvelled at how difficult it was to read even the simplest of words anymore. Many of the jumbles of letters made as little sense to her as if she'd been peering at ancient hyroglyphics through a dense fogbank while squinting all cross-eyed and trying to make sense out of it all.
The maid came in the room and cleaned up while Dana was sent in for a bath and afterward felt the medicine slowly wearing off and her mind clearing once more through the dull throb of a growing headache. The little girl climbed up into bed and crawled under the covers and went quickly to sleep, waking up sometime later feeling quite refreshed.
Danny's mind was back to normal again as well as whatever the spell didn't block out, like what it felt like even having a sex drive at all or liking girls. That stuff was still blocked out but at least the drug was gone and she could think clearly and even read those children's books if she wanted. Still there was a happy memory of how good it felt being under that drug and she saw a new tray laid out for her in the dumbwaiter already with a new glass of milk, some cookies and a brand new pink pill just for her.
Danny greedily gulped down her second pill with the fresh glass of milk and marvelled at the refreshing way with which the pill made her feel extra specially good about being a little girl and about how truly nice it was to stay just this way for keepsies.
Over the course of the next few weeks Danny remained on schedule with her regiment of behavior modifying pills and then one day she woke up and didn't need any pills at all.
The damage was done. The pills had done what they were designed to do and Danny sat there gazing and gasping at page after page of words she could no longer comprehend in books now beyond her current capability to read.
Furthermore she sat there with her rag doll, Noonie, clutched firmly at her side with neither care nor concern for feeling quite at ease and comfortable with being this way.
She blinked her pretty little eyelashes as she gazed across the room at Hilda, the maid, standing there silhouetted in the dim hall light outside her door.
"Your new parents have arrived," Hilda announced, and Danny got up and eagerly ran out to meet them.
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In this part of the story Danny Sweet has already transformed into a little girl and is about to meet her new parents at the home of Merlok the magician.
Danny didn't know what was going on but she did know that was supposed to be her new parents downstairs there to meet her and take her away so getting sent back to her room so suddenly was a huge disappointment for the girl.
Hilda locked the little girl in her bedroom as ordered and hurried downstairs to see what was the matter. When Hilda arrived in the main entry hall an argument was already well underway.
"That is not hardly the point," a dark haired stranger in a brown business suit said waving a piece of paper in his hand. "Displacement magic is forbidden by the council."
"Teleportation you mean?" Jana asked and turned briefly to Hilda and whispered to her. "Go inform Merlok we have a situation here."
"Yes, my lady," Hilda said and hurried off.
"Teleportation is just the tip of the iceberg and you know it," the fellow said. "I mean kidnapping - displacement of individuality. Disruption of life outside the boundaries you were given. Failure to carry out your orders as set forth in the guide book by the high council."
"Oh shut up, Finnian! What orders are you talking about? The rules of conduct regarding a wizard of the high tower?" Jana asked. "Merlok is no longer a member of the wizard's guild. You have no right to demand he follow your... rules and restrictions."
Finnian glared at her and threw down his document in disgust. "Bring me Danny Sweet. That is not a request. It's a demand."
"There is no one by that name living here," Jana shot back.
Suddenly Merlok cleared his throat as he entered the room and said,"It is all right, Jana, I'll handle this now. You may retire to your quarters. I'll see to this. Now what do you want, Finnian? Are you here running your fools errands again for Kelvor? And who is this other with you? Is this one of Kelvor's new rules? Sending his errand boys out with helpers? And a woman helper no less."
Jana turned and left as Merlok studied the young lady standing beside Finian in the hall.
"Her name is Veela and she is here to aid me in retrieving the boy if you should refuse to do so yourself," Finnian explained.
"By what law do you dare come into my domain and make demands of me?" Merlok asked growing weary of talking with these unwanted guests any longer. "I am asking you to leave now before I lose my temper."
"You have kidnapped Danny Sweet," Finnian said. "He went missing a few weeks ago at the same time two unauthorized teleportation spells were used in the area and an investigation led us here."
"I may teleport wherever I please," Merlok said unimpressed with their detective work. "And I am not a kidnapper. The boy put the ring on of his own free will. You can not blame me for that. I only stepped in to take care of the child afterward. That IS allowed according to the wizard's guild's own guidelines, is it not? Preventing discovery of our magic from non-magic users is a top priority for both the safety of ourselves as well as the security of our secrets. The one you call Danny Sweet fell victim to a ring curse that not even I could easily undo then and there at his residence. I had a hand in the spell, admittedly, but that was long ago. The council had different rules and regulations then which allowed for experiments of this nature. So you see, I was alerted when the boy placed the ring upon his finger. I had no choice but to step in and take matters into my own hand."
"Where is the boy now?" Finnian asked. "I demand you show him to me. Bring him here at once!"
"Boy? There is no boy here. Danny Sweet is a little girl now and can not be returned to normal. So you see, then, the complexity of the problem here and now you can understand my reluctance to turn the child over to you," Merlok explained.
"Anything that can be done can be undone. Turn the child over to me at once," Finnian demanded.
"I offer you an alternative, if you care to listen," Merlok said holding his hand up to stop his guest from barging right up the stairs or anything.
"What alternative?" the gentleman asked intriqued but no less angered at the further delay.
"I have in my posession somewhere in this house the original essence of Danny Sweet. Therefor I propose that my half-sister Jana should take the boy's place at least until I can further study the problem and try and come up with a way to reverse the damage already done," Merlok offered. "Jana has already expressed interest concerning this potential proposal and I think it would be a splendid idea, don't you?"
"You intend to keep her as a little girl," Veela butted in.
"On the contrary, my dear, I intend to do whatever I have to to fully cooperate with the council's demands but as this spell originated mostly by myself, I feel it is best that I handle things a certain way," Merlok said. "Though you are correct. I did originally plan to just give the girl away to a new set of parents out of sheer laziness on my part I suppose but once again the council has proven itself correct in these matters. So I will cooperate but under the conditions of my proposal. The girl remains with me and Jana shall take her place as Danny Sweet until I can find a way to reverse the ring magic."
"Then I will stay here with the girl to make sure you aren't up to any tricks," Veela volunteered.
Finnian nodded in agreement. "If you'll accept this arrangement...?"
"Of course," Merlok said clasping his hands together with relief and showing the man to the door. "Anything, anything, anything, my dear fellow. Now please be a good errand boy and go back to your master and inform him of the situation. Tell him I'm going to cooperate under these conditions."
"And when can we expect the substitution?" the gentleman asked.
"I will have a temporary Danny Sweet in place by first thing tomorrow morning. You can be sure of that," Merlok replied closing the front door on the fellow and leaving him outside in the cold.
Merlok stood for a moment in pause as he pondered how he was going to explain all this to Jana who had of course never even heard of nor approved of such a proposal. Merlok's clever lie would have to suffice for the time being to buy them some time but now there was still the matter of the other officer of the guild standing there with him in the front hall.
"I expect no tricks from you," Veela said at last breaking the awkward gap in conversation. "And I fully intend to begin work on reverting the child back to normal."
"She is upstairs in her room," Merlok said turning to walk away. "You'll have to ask the maid for the key I'm afraid because I can't be bothered to carry it with me everywhere. Now if you'll excuse me I have some work to do."
Within twenty minutes Veela was up in the little girl's room with her and had taken note of the level of the problem.
The child really had no knowledge of what it was like being a boy before nor any desire to go back to being that way. She seemed quite content to go on being a little girl and living out her life in her new gender and she was ever pleased to go on hugging, cuddling and playing with her little doll Noonie.
Veela also discovered from the child that she'd been taking some pills ever since she got here and recognized the tell tale signs of a drug she'd seen used once before by an evil alchemist living in the mysterious woods.
"Hilda," Veela said to the maid who'd been standing out in the hall awaiting instructions. "Merlok has a storage room full of herbs, correct?"
"Yes, ma'am," Hilda replied.
"I'll need some mocrilibern leaves boiled up to make a tea and I'll need you to bring this child a cup of that tea every hour throughout the day. We mustn't waste any time. Do you understand? The girl's been drugged horribly so and we need to get some antidote in her system to fight off the drug's effects before the damage is irreparible. It may even be too late already but we've got to give it a try," Veela said.
"Yes, ma'am. I'll go and fetch her that tea right away, ma'am," Hilda said hurring downstairs to complete the task.
Veela glanced in the pretty little girl's blue eyes for a long moment, wondering just how much of the mind altering drug had done its work on her for good. She said,"Honey, I know you know this already but it seems like a dream you had but it's not. The dream was real, hun. You were really a boy before."
"That's silly, 'cause I was always a girl, an I don't wanna be a boy," Danny said hugging her dolly close and kissing it on the forehead.
"We'll see, hun. We'll see," Veela said scruffing the child's hair playfully, trying to reassure the poor confused dear.
Meanwhile in another part of the house Merlok had just gotten through explaining the situation to his half-sister Jana. "You have to be Danny Sweet," he said to her.
"And who says it has to be me? I don't even like the idea of changing into a boy at all, let alone a non-magic user like him," she protested. "And what if you don't find a way to change the little girl back to normal again? How long will I have to go on pretending to be Danny Sweet?"
"The idea is we have to convince the council," Merlok said. "Give me two days and I think I can do that."
"What do you mean?" Jana asked. "Convince them about what?"
"Convince them that we've already turned Danny back to normal and replaced him back where he belongs. That's what," Merlok replied. "Don't you understand? There is no way to change her back to normal and the drugs have made things rather easy for convincing the council that the little girl we have has never even ever been this Danny Sweet fellow. All we need is you to go pretend you're him for a couple of days and I'll get rid of the little girl and tell the council that the swap back has already taken place."
"Boy that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of, Merlok," Jana said. "If I take the boy's place, then who'll take MINE?"
Merlok scratched his head for a moment and said,"Well... gee... I never thought of that."
"Okay, well then you'd better think of something quick because you promised them a replacement by tomorrow morning," she reminded him. "And I'm not going to be Danny's replacement if you don't have this plan worked out and I mean like completely worked out."
"There's no time to argue this any longer," Merlok said handing her a brand new magic ring. This one was gold with a bright blue coral stone on top. "You have to wear that ring and become Danny Sweet and you have to do it now."
She held the ring up to the light and examined it closely with interest for a moment... and then she grabbed hold of Merlok's hand and shoved the ring on his finger!
"What are you doing?" he shouted as the transformation spell worked its way quickly through his body, changing him into the original Danny Sweet. "What have you done?"
(...to be continued)
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Her old identity groggily woke up out of what seemed like a horrible blurry nightmare. She glanced down at the pretty pink dress she wore with little white ruffly edges and white tights and shiny black flats, and she saw her doll Noonie laying there on the floor beside her in the big walk-in closet.
Veela, the kind woman who had been administering her these warm cups of medicine was off in another part of the house and unaware that this latest cupful of tea had been the one to finally bring Danny around to her senses once more.
Danny felt quite like a puppet who'd just come to life and had her strings cut off and in their place sprouted little butterfly wings to carry her off to freedom.
She blushed with the sudden recollection that she had been a teenage boy before and had been reduced to the life of a little girl in body, mind and spirit for all this time and had been behaving strangely through a will not her own up until now. Behaving as though being this way was normal and that her boy-way never existed at all.
She cried softly to herself as the memories poured back in one by one and gave her back her original sense of identity. The tea had worked but it had taken another two weeks to undo most of what the mind altering pills had done.
She remembered being a boy and her mind was trying to make sense all over again of the differences between the way she felt before as a boy and the way she felt now as a girl.
A few times last Februray Danny had gone to the beach with his friends and rented out some wetsuits and went boogie boarding, riding the waves in the thick froth of agitated Pacific stormy waters. The storms turned normal three foot waves into gigantic mammoths but the water was too cold that time of year to go at it in just swimming trunks so Danny and some of his friends took to the waves in wetsuits.
Being a girl felt comparable to wearing a wetsuit all snug and tight and smooth on the outside, only it was a bit more snug in the crotch but it felt almost just as weird and just as exciting and different as being out there in that numbing water rushing in on those waves. Only thing was this wetsuit couldn't be removed and it was tons more sensitive as it was girl flesh instead of cold, wet, elastic neoprene.
Danny's boy mind was back and intrigued with the strange newness to all this. The magic pills had made her artifically glad to be a little girl and she remembered all of that as clear as day but now she realized perhaps for the first time that being this way could indeed be fun, and it would be - if only she could change back to normal at least once in awhile and be this little pumpkin princess of a cutie-pie only when she wanted, and in secret so nobody else need ever know about it.
Right now, though, remaining this way was the last thing she wished for. She'd been made to be this way far longer than she had ever anticipated from the moment she changed into a girl by wearing that magic ring. Sitting down to pee for all this time was an especially humiliating memory but it reared its ugly head suddenly from all that tea she'd drank this morning and so Danny stood up and hurried off to the bathroom to relieve the mounting pressure in her bladder.
She climbed up and sat on the toilet seat and discovered another series of memories those drugs had made her casually overlook up until now, for she suddenly realized and remembered another humiliating thing about her and that was having to actually clutch onto the sides of the great big toilet seat for fear of actually falling in. She was that small of a girl that if she wasn't careful she would slip backward a few inches and maybe not fall all the way in but at least fall into an awkward slump at possibly the worst time ever.
She finished up what she had to do in the bathroom and washed her hands and returned to her bedroom once more. So much of this felt new to her after what those drugs had done that she felt compelled to kick off her shoes and go have a look in the large wall mirror nearby.
She saw an auburn haired little girl with big blue eyes gazing back at her in her reflection. Thanks to those pills she had grown quite accustomed to seeing that face and that little girl's body and recognizing it as the one she always had but now she was looking at herself through the eyes of a little girl and the mind of a teenaged boy and taking note.
Her stockinged legs felt weird in those tights and she was itching to remove them and wriggle her toes freely on the thick white throw rug. She glanced down and lifted up the front of her dress a little and wrapped her thumbs in the edges of the elastic waist band of her tights and she pulled them quickly off her and tossed the crumpled ball off to one side and wriggled her little pink toes freely in the wonderful soft fibers of the carpet.
Her dress felt funny too and looked just as odd to her newly awakened male mind. She rummaged through her closet and dresser drawers in search of something less feminine to wear but found nothing but more of the same types of little girl outfits, only in different colors and patterns.
So she took out a ball of yarn from a bag of knitting materials that Veela had brought up here before, and Danny hiked up her dress with a funny little yarn belt around both thighs and made it look like a pair of ridiculous looking shorts. Still frilly and girly but at least it wasn't a dress anymore.
With her boy thoughts mostly back in place she was a bit anxious to get the rest of her changed back to normal too and promptly hopped up inside the dumbwaiter and closed the doors and pressed the "down" button, sending her straight away to the kitchen. If she couldn't find a way into that basement and find a way to change back to normal then at least she could have more of that yummy warm tea.
Meanwhile back at Danny's real bedroom in Danny's real home sat a boy who looked quite like the original Danny Sweet only who had the mind and spirit of the evil wizard Merlok.
Jana, Merlok's half-sister and personal lab assistant, had tricked Merlok and forced his latest magic ring upon his own hand, changing him into a copy of Danny Sweet for the purpose of temporarily taking Danny's place until they found a way to change the original Danny back to normal again.
Jana was fed up with her older half-brother and decided it was high time to teach him a lesson.
"Do you realize what you've done?" Merlok asked, remembering back to what he said to her when the deed had taken place and he'd been reduced to a teenaged boy. "This magic ring can only be removed by me, Merlok, but as there is no Merlok anymore due to your traitorous meddling, I'm stuck this way. What's more I can no longer weild magic this way. And furthermore how will you explain all this to the high council?"
"You just let me worry about that now," was all she said in reply before she sent him back to Danny's house to face Danny's parents and get the grounding of a lifetime for "running away like that."
It had been over two weeks since that happened and the Merlok was still stuck as Danny. The little blue stoned ring sat there upon his finger still, stuck in place by the horrible ring curse he'd personally designed with pride. Even now the magic sent a faint but distinguishable pulse through his finger as the spell ever so slowly reinforced itself with every passing moment. If he remained in this form for too long he would be stuck this way for good. He couldn't go back to Jana for she would simply send him right back here until she ever got around to figuring a way to change that little girl back to normal again and put things right. Even if he could cast a teleportation spell he was sure that Jana would have taken the same precautions as he did and keep the magic blocking shield running most of the time. The only other way there to his estate was by sailing clear out into the middle of the Pacific Ocean and finding his island and that would be no easy task, especially for a teenage boy who had less than five dollars change in lunch money in his wallet and a secret magic weilding half-sister named Jana that could send him right back to Danny's house with the flick of her wrist if she wanted.
So it was a waiting game at this point. Merlok-Danny was fed up with the treatment he'd gotten since coming here to this place. He'd been made to do awful, horrible, dreadfully nasty chores like mowing the lawn and trimming the hedges and pulling the weeds and taking out the garbage and even eating all his vegetables or no dessert. That was the worst because he hated vegetables and especially collie flour, which every wizard knows is chocked full of nasty magic dampening poisons. Still, at least he was allowed to play his video games even though he was still grounded. That part was cool but there was no way he was ever going to get past level three of Duel Master's Challenge if his mom didn't keep blowing the circuit breaker by running that dumb vacume cleaner at the same time as the microwave and air conditioner and Springer Show all the time that's for sure.
He was sixteen now and not his normal four hundred and thirty-four year old self, and that was taking some getting used to for poor Merlok. He hadn't been this young since, well... since the Spanish Armada sank, and they didn't have video games then, or if they did they were really, really bad.
Merlok-Danny was going to have to have a long talk with Jana once he saw her again. It wasn't her place to make dangerous spur of the moment decisions like that, especially ones which could directly foil all of Merlok's carefully designed plans. Apparently his half-sister thought she could handle this situation better.
Back in Merlok's lab deep in the basement of his island home sat Jana at the wooden workbench under a single metal lamp overlooking Merlok's notes for possibly the hundredth time, trying to make sense of any of it as the fellow tended to write half his chicken scratch comments down in code.
Veela was there too as Jana had decided to take the woman into her full confidence and cooperate one hundred percent with the high council in finding a way to change Danny Sweet back to normal.
"This isn't getting us anywhere," Veela said, her patience growing thin. "You may need to bring Merlok back here and have him work on this problem himself. And explain why, again, you had decided it was best to have him be the temporary replacement for Danny?"
"The choice was simple, really," Jana said. "He's been male for far longer than I've ever been and knows how to act the role and besides... he needed to learn a lesson that it's not okay to kidnap people. That made him automatically the best choice for who was going to be Danny Sweet."
"Well you really should let the council decide what punishment best suits Merlok. Until then we need to get him back here immediately to work on this problem. We've got to get that child turned back into a boy and undo this horrible mess before we all lose our magic practicing licenses," Veela said. "So from this point on I think it best that I take charge of things and organize just how exactly we're going to get that girl back to normal. We're getting nowhere without the master of that spell around to tell us how to undo it. So I need you to fetch Merlok here right away. I don't care if you can change him back or not. We'll work on that later on. For now let's just get him back here and get him working on a reversal spell for Danny... oh for the love of... Has SHE been standing there listening in on this the whole time?"
A timid barefoot little girl stepped out from the shadows and waved at them.
"Honey, what on earth are you doing down here? And why in the world are you dressed up like that for?" Jana asked indicating the strange home made pantaloons the child had formed out of her dress and some length of yarn all knotted up around her legs.
"It wore off," the child explained. "It wore off. I'm me again inside and I came down here to get changed back to normal again, please."
Hilda stepped into the room nearly all out of breath and said,"Sorry ma'am but she swiped the key to the pantry out of the bread basket and got in. I was in the master bedroom changing the linens at the time and didn't discover anything wrong until a minute ago when I went back in the kitchen to start sweeping the floor. I'll take her right back up to her room, ma'am, I promise, and I promise I won't let it happen again."
"No, no. That's all right, Hilda," Veela said. "I think we'll keep her down here for now. We'll be summoning over Merlok back again to work on this and also I think it best we bring in a few more wizards to help get this all sorted out in a more reasonable time frame."
Jana saw Hilda's hesitation to follow the stranger's orders and finally Jana nodded and said,"It's all right, Hilda. It's been decided that Veela is running things around here for now until we get through this mess. So go ahead and prepare for at least three or four extra guests tonight."
"Yes, ma'am," Hilda said and turned and went to carry out the task.
Finally Veela smiled at the little girl and asked,"Feeling better, hun?"
"Much better, thanks," Danny replied.
"Why don't you hop up on that chair and rest awhile before you catch cold in your bare feet," Veela suggested. "What ever compelled you to run around like that for in the first place? You'll catch a death of cold wandering around in this part of the house like that. Anyway, nevermind that now. While Jana is busy fetching all the wizards here to help work on the counter-spell, how do you feel about taking a few reading and writing tests? We may as well check your math skills while we're at it, just to make sure."
Jana stood up and walked out of the room, heading to the teleportation chamber to de-activate the spell blocking shield and go fetch Merlok.
"Okay," Danny said. "I can do this."
"Good," Veela said pleased. "And then afterwards some more tea, m'kay?"
"Okay," Danny agreed.