By FoxFaceStories

When an entire college literature class is transported to a fairy tale world while studying folklore, they soon find themselves living out actual famous fairy tales! But these various friends, groups, and even professors must now contend with the world starting to change them. After all, Puss in Boots wants a wife, the Big Bad Wolf is looking for a mate, and the Goldilocks bears have laid a transformative trap for the next unwelcome visitor to their home . . .

Prologue Here

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Fable 2, Part 1: The Woodsman?

Spencer Hughes ran through the forest. God, how could it all have gone so wrong? That stupid dweeb Norman was now some fucking catgirl named Nora, and not only that, but she’d chosen to stay with another cat guy! It was insane, and Spencer was glad to be rid of him. Only now he had no idea where he was going or how to navigate this bizarre fairytale world. He’d barely made two days into the forest, living off of supplies in his pack and struggling to form shelters, before he’d woken up to find his horse totally missing. It was just . . . gone, and that included most of his supplies.

“Why the fuck didn’t I tie it up!?” he groaned as he rested his head against the hard surface of a tree in frustration.

He knew the answer, of course. His family came from money. When you were done with the horse, one of the hired help came and led the horse away for you. And now his steed had simply wandered off, leaving him in a dark and mysterious forest with only a thin riding trail to follow, one that wound around nature rather than through it.

“Stupid goddamn fairy tale nonsense,” he muttered to himself. “Why did I even join that class? Didn’t get to taste Abigail Edgerton’s pussy even once!”

He kicked a rock on the path as he continued on his way. His belly rumbled, his stomach hungry for food. The man had been famished for another twenty four hours now. He considered trying to make his way back to Puss in Boots’ castle, but decided against it. He didn’t want to stumble into any freaky cat people sex or whatever Norm-turned-Nora’s new freaky kink was. 

“Just need to find shelter,” he told himself. “Or someone else. The others have got to be here, too.”

It was then that he came upon a sign that pointed off the trail down a left-leaning path. He ran to it, hoping it would provide his salvation, and sure enough, it gave him some hope. It read: Home of the Three Bears. 5 Miles.

“Ha!” he declared. “Even I know that one. This’ll be easy. Just sneak in and get some porridge, then leave instead of falling asleep there like some dumb Goldilocks.”

He headed down the trail, but was only ten minutes into his walk when he suddenly heard a loud rustling behind him. Cautious, the large footballer stepped back into a bush just in case. Sure enough, it turned out to be the right decision, because barrelling down the path was an enormous black bear, adult in size and immense in strength. Behind him were two other bears, both of which looked older - the fact that one wore a feminine hat and the other had a set of grandpa glasses made it all the more obvious. Like Puss in Boots, they were like something out of an illustrated children’s book, with human-like proportions and more expressive faces. Still, they were a fearful sight to behold, scampering on all fours before rising up bipedally, and then slamming back down again as they gained speed.

“The magic trap, father!” the younger bear in front roared. “The magic trap, mother! It has activated! Someone samples the porridge!”

“We’ve got her now, Baby Bear!” his mother shouted.

“Finally, that Goldilocks can learn a true lesson if she’s to keep using our house!” added the father.

“I’m not Baby Bear anymore!” the son roared as he passed Spencer. “And I certainly won’t be to her when she -”

  Suddenly he skidded to a stop, and so did his parents behind him. He sniffed the air, and Spencer looked through the bushes, his heart beating rapidly in fear as the creature rose to seven feet in height, a tall anthro-bear now looking straight at him.

“I smell a watcher!” the one called Baby Bear shouted. “Are you here to warn Goldilocks of her coming? Is that how she keeps getting away? Come here, human!”

Spencer screamed. He had always thought of himself as fearless. Hell, he was a bear of a man himself. But even as broad-shouldered as the popular and handsome footballer was, he was a tiny pimple of a man when placed against the breadth and strength of a giant anthro-bear. He immediately ran, and the bears behind him gave chase.

“Get him, son!”

Spencer sprinted off from the path. He was still a champion runner, and had scored many touchdowns this way. He crashed through treelines and zigzagged left and right to escape angry paws.

“I’ll get you!” roared Baby Bear. 

Spencer yelled again, then burst through another treeline only to fall off a small cliff while still screaming. He landed with a sickening crunch upon his left leg. Something in it snapped, and it bent completely the wrong way.

“AAGHH!” he cried, falling down and clutching his leg. He’d landed on a large rock, and slid off into the damp earth. Above, the Baby Bear chuckled.

“That’ll teach you!” he said. “The punishment for helping a thief! Why, I oughta drag you up and-”

“Son!” his mother called. “You should get to the house and claim her! Before it’s too late!”

“Yes, son,” his father added. “He’s not going anywhere. Leave him to struggle out of the forest and learn not to do this again. If he even survives, the thief.”

The bears retreated in victory, leaving Spencer to mire in utter agony.

“The f-fucking three bears?” he groaned, trying to drag himself across the ground and out of view. “Are you k-kidding me!? This j-just gets worse and - ahh!”

He collapsed onto his stomach, unable to even crawl due to the pain. Spencer’s breath came in wheezes, and the sheer pain in his broken leg caused his vision to narrow. Little dots danced wherever he looked, and it was making him become faint; not a good sign at all.

“S-someone . . . help me . . . goddamn you . . .”

He tried to stay conscious, but it was as if he was out at sea with nothing to cling to, and the waves were ready to wash over his head. The man almost didn’t notice a figure emerging from the treeline. It was hard to make it out with the way his vision was losing focus, but it looked like a large muscular man. He had tanned skin and wore no shirt, just a pair of blue pants. It left his very hairy chest on display, which matched his hairy face; the man had a short but thick goatee and the hair was thick upon his cheeks as well, black as coal.

“H-help me,” Spencer begged, trying to look up at the man.

The daunting man approached, his steps thudding upon the ground, but when he spoke it came out only as a series of muffled grunts to Spencer’s ears. His vision began to collapse and the darkness greeted him.

***

Spencer slowly woke to the warmth of a comfortable bed and a crackling fire across the room. It took him a moment to get his bearings, but a sharp pain in his left leg sent him reeling, and it brought all the strange memories of the last few days back.

“Ach . . . it really happened. And I snapped my leg, goddamn it!”

He tried to rub it, but hesitated at the threshold. It was beneath the quilted covers, and he remembered seeing and feeling it bend the wrong way, the bones within having entirely snapped. He didn’t want to feel that now, so instead he looked around. To his surprise, the footballer saw that he was in a rather rustic cottage, complete with old-fashioned wooden board walls, old-fashioned cupboards, a thick rug upon the floorboards beside him, and numerous carved dolls and decorations that gave the place a lived-in feel. 

“Hello?” he called out as his stomach rumbled. “Is anyone there? Is anyone - agh!”

Spencer cringed at the pain in his calf, but it thankfully diminished quickly. He resisted the urge to scratch his leg, and the pain softened immediately as a set of heavy footsteps approached. For a moment, Spencer was actually worried, but then the man who had rescued him entered the cabin room, ducking his head a little to fit through the low curved ceiling of the doorway. 

“You’re awake,” the man said, his voice guttural and growly, yet not unkind even as he looked Spencer up and down.

The young man immediately felt a little strange at the sight of his rescuer. The man had a more muscular figure than he did, obvious even now that he was wearing a white button shirt. But he didn’t have the body of a gym-fanatic or a football trainer, all defined muscles and the like. Instead, he looked like a man who chopped wood all day; strongly built and bear-like, though Spencer hoped not too bear-like, after that terrible encounter. He didn’t sense that was the case, though. His rescuer had sharper, pointier features in his face, his black hair falling down to his ears on each side, while his eyes were icy blue and more than a little intimidating in their intensity. Strangely, he smelled nice. There was no other way to explain it, but Spencer was noticing another man’s scent for the first time, and it was rather . . . lovely. Like a strong musk. It was deeply manly, and it gave Spencer a mix of jealousy and curiosity, the latter of which he couldn’t quite explain to himself.

“You right in the head?” the man asked after some prolonged silence. “Or are you a mute?”

“N-not a mute,” Spencer said, before regaining his courage and his own alpha male sense of self. “Name’s Spencer. Spencer Hughes. I’m new around these parts.”

He extended a hand out from the bed, and the other man shook it. His grip was firm, but Spencer was surprised by how sharp his fingernails were.

“Name’s Big,” the man said.

“Big? That’s your full name?”

“First part of three, but I don’t go around advertising my full name. Folks round these parts can be a suspicious bunch sometimes, even when a man has changed.”

“I fucking know that!” Spencer declared, feeling common ground. “I was chased by those damn three bears! You know, the ones from that frickin’ Goldilocks story.”

“They still have it out for her, all right,” Big said with a husky-sounding chuckle. “One track minds, those bears. Can’t judge ‘em, I used to be like ‘em back in the day. So, where you from?”

“Not anywhere close,” Spencer said. “I’m from another world. No, I’m not joking. Hear me out, okay! Where I’m from, this place is all just fairy tales to us. Legends and shit. We don’t have talking animals and weird crap like that. I’m a fucking star footballer - that’s a sport - and I’m the goddamn alpha there.”

The man cocked his head. “Alpha, eh? Can’t smell it on you.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Means what it means.”

Spencer frowned, but decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. This place was weird enough that he didn’t want to be making enemies, especially since he’d already seen one class member get turned into a freakin’ cat slut or whatever.

“Look, uh, I’m just saying I’m not from round these parts, okay? So I’m thankful you saved me from those dipshit wacko bears and brought me here.”

“Not like you were gonna run,” Big said. “Not with your leg like that. Treated it how I could. Should get better, I hope. Was running on instinct for a bit. Might not have used conventional medicine, but I’m thinkin’ it’ll do the trick.”

Spencer nodded. Were he as smart as Norman - now Nora - he might have detected some hints that he should start asking more specific questions. But instead he relaxed back in bed a bit. “Well, Big, you did well dragging me here.”

“Lifted ya.”

“Well, goddamn. You could be on the football team if you were ten years younger. You could replace my weak link, a loser named Grant. Anyway, is there anything I owe you? America has this whole insurance thing that lazy people can’t afford when it comes to hospitals and stuff. Do you take card?”

The man frowned and cocked his head a little. “You ain’t making sense, kid. But I tell ya what, you can help me round the cottage as you get yer health back. For now, you just rest up and get better and I’ll make sure you get some solid meal in ya. Oh, and take this. Got some of that mythic magic in it. It’ll keep ya safe and protected while you heal. No infections from the bite and all.”

He tossed something to Spencer, who caught it easily by instinct. It was a red blanket of sorts. No, that wasn’t right, it was a red cloak with a hood.

“A red . . . riding hood?” Spencer said.

The man winked. “The very same. Maybe you’ve heard of it, kid. You rest up. I’ll go get ya some lamb stew.”

Spencer relaxed back in bed, trying to ignore that foreign itch upon his leg and the same itch in the toes of his other foot. He wanted to be getting up and out of here, but snapping a calf bone was no freaking joke, and besides, with that last little reveal he knew that he was in good hands. He didn’t know half of the wacky fairytales they talked about in Professor Styles’ stupid class, the one that had gotten him into this insane situation in the first place. But even he knew the tale of Little Red Riding Hood and how it ended. The Big Bad Wolf was killed by a muscular woodsman who saved the day. 

Spencer smiled, leaning back in bed and getting more comfortable.

“Luck’s finally turning,” he said to himself while Big got the stew organised in the other room. “That guy is obviously the woodsman.”

He couldn't have been further from the ironic truth.

***

It turned out that the reason for the itch was because Big had wrapped up much of his left leg, all the way up to the thigh. It was a nuisance, but the muscular woodsman was adamant that it stay on when Spencer hobbled awkwardly on one foot outside to use the privy. It was painful and itchy, but not as bad as he thought it would be, though he kept scratching his upper leg as well.

“Just don’t tear it off,” Big told him. “And don’t use it too much, or you’ll end up snapping it again, and not even a wolf’s bite will fix it.”

Spencer thought it a strange statement, but assumed that Big was just referring to some local wisdom. He finished his business and returned, but he was so weak and tired from the healing process that he went right to bed again, clutching Little Red Riding Hood’s titular hood against his body. Sometimes he woke just to eat some hearty stew, only to fall asleep again. His body felt oddly pressurised in places, and his tailbone was starting to ache. Occasionally, Spencer would toss and turn in bed and scratch his chest, only to wake up and see that he really needed to cut his nails, because otherwise soon he’d be leaving some marks. Already, his scratching was causing his nipples to become more prominent, and several points below them were also starting to feel pressurised, itchy, and achey.

It was something he brought to Big’s attention when he finally summoned up the strength one evening to go out into the main living space and collapse upon a couch there. The smell of the area was fascinating to Spencer. It smelled like a dog had been here - or something even more wild. Indeed, there were black hairs all about the place, but it didn’t reek of that horrible dog smell the way he thought it would. Instead, he found himself sniffing the air in an odd, almost animalistic way.

“Mhmmm,” he murmured, voice cracking a little. “Musky.”

It was at that point that a loud howl echoed in the distance. Spencer sat bolt upright, only to wince at the pain in his leg. He just barely managed to resist rubbing it, though his foot felt so damn compressed, like it was being stretched out. Moments later the door to the cottage opened and Big thudded his way in, wearing no shirt and with a deer carcass slung over his shoulder. He sniffed the air and then looked straight over to Spencer, clearly surprised.

“Yer up,” he said in his taciturn fashion.

“Getting sick of lying down all the time like a shit player on the sidelines and sleeping like some beta cuck loser,” he said.

“I understood some of those words,” Big grunted.

Spencer actually chuckled at this, though he scratched his chest a little without meaning to, followed by several points further down his chest. “Yeah, guess that kind of speech is not the kinda stuff a woodsman like you hears in his day-to-day, eh?”

“Woodsman, huh?” Big said. “What makes you think I’m a woodsman?”

Spencer gave him a smug grin. “C’mon, dude. You live in a cottage in a forest. You have Little Red Riding Hood’s hood. You’re built like a brick shithouse instead of that weak wooden shithouse out in the backyard. There’s an axe above the fireplace here. You’re obviously the Woodsman from all the fairytales, right?”

Big adjusted the deer carcass over his shoulder and looked up at the axe that hung over the fireplace. His gaze was forlorn, and Spencer got the sense that he’d struck on something deeper than he’d assumed, not that he could figure out what.

“The axe is more of a reminder to me,” Big said. “Same for that red riding hood you’ve got there. Both reminders to be a better man. It’s why I had to save your life.”

“Dude, it was a broken bone, and I appreciate it, but I don’t know if-”

“You were bleeding internally, kid. You were dying. Did my best to save you. Looks like it worked. But don’t go calling me a woodsman, okay?”

He slung the deer carcass out the back, presumably to start the process of skinning and butchering.

“And get back into bed,” his voice echoed. “Don’t go moving about or it’ll get worse.”

Spencer was left confused, but then he shrugged.

“None of my business,” he said to himself, before scratching two itchy points lower on his stomach. “Just need to heal up and then I can get out of this place.”

And yet he found himself hoping that Big would return before he fell back asleep. The man had a quiet, rugged magnetism to him. Normally, Spencer would see him as a rival, someone to overcome, but the injured jock felt an odd warmness in his presence.

“It’s just because he smells so fucking good,” he muttered to himself as he closed his eyes to fall asleep. “Not bad looking either . . .”

He wasn’t even truly aware of that last thought, or the fact that he’d voiced it at all. Instead, he fell back into a deep sleep, his leg quietly throbbing, the strange discomfort slowly spreading up to his thigh.

***

Spencer woke the next day. Big had left him a fine breakfast and freshly squeezed juice. It made the brash man feel a sense of longing; there was a note from Big next to it, scrawled in messy handwriting.

Out hunting. Back tonight. Take care of yourself. Don’t move from the bed unless you need to - B

Spencer frowned, and there was a pang in his chest. He grabbed the note and sniffed it, sampling Big’s scent. He could almost detect his trail, having gone out into the woods through the back door of the cottage. 

“Damn it,” Spencer said to himself. “That’s a recent smell. I bet I just missed him. Fuck. I was hoping to . . .”

Hoping to what? That was the question in his mind? He wasn’t even sure himself, other than he wanted to spend more time with the man, especially since his healing body seemed to ache for his presence. Still, the food smelled delicious, and so Spencer ate it. His teeth felt a little weird - sharper than they should be - and his nose was wet and dark on the end, which concerned him. But he felt stronger, perhaps even stronger than he’d been before his injury, and after what had to be nearly a week of falling in and out of sleep, he was eager to get walking again. Slowly, Spencer rose from the bed and got out. He tested his feet on the floorboards, but his injured left leg, still wrapped in white bandages, was very odd. It didn’t want to sit flat, but instead positioned itself so that his toes were holding him up, his heel raised as if about to spring into a jump.

“The hell?” he grunted. “Jesus, my other foot is doing it, too.”

It looked normal, though there were little furry tips on his toes that had him concerned, and his toenails were far too thick and long.

“Whatever medicine that woodsman gave me is having some fucked up side effects.”

Still, he strode out, trying to avoid swaying his hips due to his new posture. He rubbed his backside and the tip of his tailbone, which was protruding a little too much, as if the bone had shifted outwards. Part of the bandage went over it, having wrapped up over his thigh to his lower waist. He must have been sleeping when the woodsman had done that.

“Why would he put more on?” Spencer said, though his voice cracked a little. He rubbed his sore ears and then scratched his sore chest. Something strange was going on. His entire body felt odd, as if it was simultaneously stronger and weaker than it had been. The hair on his chest was thicker and no longer black but grey, while his waist and shoulders were thinner than they should be despite his obvious muscles.

Spencer stepped out into the living room and tried to find a mirror. There wasn’t one in the main room, and part of him was already feeling a need to return to bed and sleep, but he quickly pinched his arm with his too-long and too-sharp fingernails.

“The fuck is going on?” he hissed. “Don’t fall asleep, Spencer. Find out what the fuck is going on!”

He pushed his way into the woodsman’s room. To his surprise, there was no bed so much as a series of furs and blankets upon the floor, as if it were a large dog’s bed. There was even hair everywhere, but to Spencer’s increased olfactory senses it smelled like . . . the woodsman. And yet it was also canine.

“Mirror,” he reminded himself. “Just find a fucking mirror already, dude.”

There was one in the corner. Spencer shuffled along on the pads of his feet, moving slowly due to the still-sore calf bone in his left leg that had so recently healed up. But when he saw his reflection, the man almost jumped. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, just a pair of shorts beneath which were all the bandages, and that allowed him to see almost the full extent of his changes.

The hairy changes.

The canine changes.

The feminine changes. 

“No,” he said, voice cracking yet again. He stepped back, only to put too much pressure upon his wounded leg, causing him to let loose a sound that could only be described as a dog’s whimper. Spencer wanted to look away, but it was impossible: the changes were now undeniable. His face was softer, his lips fuller. His nose was dark on the end, and was changing shape to look like the nose of a dog. His eyes were darker, and he no longer had facial hair growing in over his time of recovery, but instead actual fur. Grey fur. It was surprisingly soft, and yet a little wild. Worse, it had spread to the tips of his ears, which were moving further up the sides of his head, as if currently in the act of migrating to the top of his skull. And this was just his face: Spencer’s body had obviously changed slowly but surely during his states of unconsciousness. His waist was definitely slimmer, as were his shoulders. He knew both of these facts, but the transformation was more extreme than he thought, and it left him with a clearly feminised figure, one that was further emphasised by the widening of his hips. His muscles were still present, but now they were also layered over with feminine curves. 

“N-no,” he croaked, trying and failing to stop his voice from cracking again. “No fucking way!”

He oddly touched one of his swollen nipples, only to give a sharp intake of breath. It was sensitive. It was bigger. It had feminine areolas. It was also dark grey, and the same was true of the other nipples . . . and the six nipples below. There was no denying that the odd little protrusions further down his naked chest were also nipples now: they were just as sensitive and likewise swollen in response to the unwanted sensitivity he felt. The last pair sat equidistant just below his bellybutton, where some grey-white fur was slowly creeping up from the bandages.

“F-fur,” Spencer said, swallowing nervously. The man, already traumatised, gripped the bandages that the woodsman had applied. Slowly he peeled them around and backwards, uncovering yet more grey fur that was thick and matted from being compressed for so long. This was why his leg had been itching! He gripped the bandages and began to rip away at them, the almost-claws that were his fingernails shredding the material to pieces. Spencer proceeded to howl just like a wolf at what he saw.

It was a canine leg.

His left leg ended in a canine paw, complete with pads beneath his foot and an arched shape that left him practically walking on his toes. The fur was thickest there, as if it were spreading out from one location and only gradually spreading to the rest of his system. He reached out with a shaky hand and rubbed his sore calf where the bone had broken. It was still somewhat tender, but he could see something between the fur, a different kind of injury.

It was a bite. One where something had sunk its fangs in deep.

“Oh fuck! Oh fuck!” he cried, voice now sounding more feminine by the second despite his macho pride. “It’s just like with nerdy Norm! No! Fuck this! I’m getting out of here!”

He tried to run out of the room, but quickly fell over. His leg still hurt, and they were uneven now, though the fur was spreading around his crotch as well. The man felt between his legs and sighed in relief; he was still male there, though he didn’t feel quite as big as he was used to. It sent another wave of panic through him; a fear of being emasculated just like that loser dweeb Norm had been. Quickly, the young man shot to his feet again. The bandages came loose as she tore at his clothing in a panic, and that sent his shorts falling to the ground. He was partly relieved despite the nakedness that had followed; they had been too tight around his hips. Now he just had bandages around his waist, but that mattered far less than escape at this point. He started to hobble as fast as he could, shifting out from the front door and into the treeline beyond.

“Gotta get out of here! Gotta get back to fucking reality!”

To Be Continued . . .