With a loud *thwump*, the stone door closed, signifying both the closure of Tate's escape route and his destiny. The green-furred minotaur held up his torch to the darkness, illuminating the long hallway. He swallowed the lump in his throat and began to press on. Tate struggled to maintain an even pace, both in step and breath, by repeating the mantra: "You can do this, think of your friends. Do it for them." Tate had been exploring a cave with some of his greatest friends, when they entered a room in which the floor suddenly cracked away and began rocking. It was apparent soon that the floor was balanced on a comparably-miniscule point in the center of the circular room. When the floor had lost most its support, leaving it balanced on the point above the endless abyss, Tate, Doger, Tino, and Steel had been forced to scramble to balance themselves. After a long hour of calming each other, the three minotaurs and Rottweiler found their path of egress. It was a single ladder hanging a few feet from a corner of the balance floor. That left a terrifying leap for them across the endless hole and a horrifying, desperate grab for the rungs. Fortunately, they all made it across, Tate deciding to go last. But just as he neared the top and his friends' outstretched paws, the ladder suddenly dropped away and he plummeted to the darkness below. The mint-green minotaur had awoken among a pile of splinters and cracked wood, the remains of the ladder that had fallen with him. Tate checked himself for injuries, but aside from a few trivial bruises, he was unharmed. He looked up and saw a distant speck of light; how had he survived? Tate pressed on into the depths of the cave he found himself in, setting a torch alight to provide a way ahead. He found a tunnel that lead gods-knew-where, and while walking down it, he had heard that stone door close behind him. As he walked down the path, glyphs and symbols started to show on the walls. Mildly curious, Tate held his torch to them as he passed in a half-hearted effort to understand their meaning. He repeatedly saw variations on one symbol: the down-pointing key representing "female" and the diagonal arrow for "male." But they were combined into one, oddly enough. Did that mean the ideas of varied gender identity went as far back as... well, however old this place was? Little did Tate know he would find the answers in a very personal manner... ----- Taking a swig from his canteen, Tate brought his head down as he reattached it to his explorer's belt. When he looked back up, however, he froze as if plunged into liquid nitrogen. It was a chair with what at first appeared to be some sort of barber shop's hair dryer, one of those domes that encase the top of your head and blows the warm air all over. As Tate walked closer to the chair, however, he saw that it wasn't a plastic dome for blowing dry wind through, but was some sort of old-time medical restraint with bolts places for keeping one's head still. There was no other equipment evident on the furniture, but Tate shuddered to think of why it was necessary. The chair sat in the middle of a small room, smack dab in the center of the ten-foot-radius of the cavern. As the minotaur entered, he noticed more symbols, but not the combined male-female circle, rather the repeating theme this time around was a shocking word. A WORD written in ENGLISH LETTERS! Of course, "Kovvu" didn't tell Tate a single, lickin' thing about the other things he had seen, so he turned his attention skyward. He gasped and teared up as he witnessed a beautiful sight: a distant, far speck of sunlight above him. ------- Mere minutes later, Tate was collapsed into a pile of sobbing, miserable emotion of minotaur. There were no means of ascending the chimney of rock, and the walls were completely smooth! The sides of the cavern were too far for him to try shimmying up with the back-and-feet bracing technique, and the stupid chair in the center didn't have any sturdy-enough materials to construct some sort of climbing device either! And even if it did, Tate doubted he had the necessary expertise anyways! So thus the green-furred minotaur stumbled over to said chair and flopped into it, tears streaming down his face and feeling fatigue fill his aching body. He was just so tired and worn, the sound of escape just sounded far too difficult at this point. Tate said, his thoughts a jumble. He closed his eyes and snores filled the small room. He felt his hold on consciousness slip as something cool and metallic slipped onto his head, relieving the sweaty head of his previous efforts... ------------- The minotaur dreamed as the chair began to move. Unknown to Tate, the machine on the chair actually plugged into his consciousness and his thoughts were being read and processed into a box on the back of the chair. Within this container sat a creature known as a fae: a being without any true physical form, but more an entity of pure magic that had intelligence of the highest degree. This particular fae found great happiness in granting to others their greatest desire while also facilitating their escape from this cavern that was her home. She never understood *why* her home was designed and placed here, but she didn't think too much on the subject. The fae went to work on the minotaur. Centuries of guidance resulted in her finding the core where all beings kept their deepest, most-secret desires. Then, like a light switch, the fae willed the desire into being and energy coursed over the still-sleeping form of Tate. The minotaur suddenly shot awake as the electricity arced over his body, and leapt off the chair. But the fae already had resumed her slumber as the chair folded up into the ground and out of sight... --------- What were these thoughts racing through Tate's mind? These energies coursing over his fur, what were they!? They didn't hurt, they felt good, but why? What had happened to the chair and what had it done to him? But just as quick as his confusion had, understanding suddenly entered his mind. Tate- -no, that name wouldn't work anymore. The minotaur realized this as it felt changes within its form and mind. The thick beard on the minotaur's face faded into the green fur of its face and the definition of its body changed subtly. <"Tala" is a much more fitting name for me,> the now-feminine minotaur thought to herself. Tala smiled as the transformation set upon her. She didn't know how she did know her greatest wish was coming to be, she just did. But she was thoroughly looking forward to these changes now. Her hips widened slightly and her breast formed two modest lumps. She was grateful she had worn a work-out suit, the stretchy material providing both comfort and stretch-ability for the onset of her new form. Just like the beard of her former masculinity, the mint-green fur on her body began to change and disappear, darkening into a forest-green. Her hooves grew digits and claws, her small, bovid tail thickened and grew into a great spinal pillar of muscle tipped by a spikey-club, and her angled horns shrunk as the shape of her head reshaped into something more triangular. From her back grew great wings that contained majesty in their form and completing the draconically-royal appearance Tala was attaining. To Tala, it appeared she was becoming some sort of green dragoness, beautiful in shape, majestic in form. But to certain populace, they would've recognized her as an anthro Rathian, a species of all-female dragons who had a male counterpart in the red Rathalos species. As her endragonment completed, Tala smiled as the second half of her desire began. She was immediately concerned by the space of the room as it began, but found she simply didn't care. Tala smirked as she felt her weight increase, not in any specific area at first, but rather all over. Within seconds, her lithe form grew to a modest hourglass shape, albeit still quite modest a size. She wasn't fat, but neither could she be described as small. Tala didn't stop growing there, however, though the shape of her increasing size did. The slight paunch of her belly slowed its growth as her breasts and buttocks seemed to accelerate. Her smile melted into an expression of weary pleasure as she watched herself grow. Her boobs swelled larger, pushing against her shirt and lifting it from her belly as each sphere neared the size of XL-beach-balls. She dropped her arms to her sides, her claws bouncing off her thighs as her buttocks grew to be isometric with medium-sized dogs and small children! She closed her eyes as she felt her pants and shirt strain against her swelling form, grunting in a trilling soprano as the tension of her clothing threatened to overwhelm her senses as her tits and arse struggled for freedom from their fabric prisons. Even still, they grew. Her boobs were almost completely obscuring her fat belly now, which had gained some weight still. Tala's rump widened to a size that the chair from before would not only be far too small, but would get stuck between the twin orbs of her hog-crushing booty. Tala shouted in pleasure as her clothing finally surrendered to her growth with a symphony of shrips, exposing portions of her fattening bosom and posterior to the air through various tears of her clothes. By now, her pants had hiked up to her knees as her butt overflowed the capacity of the material. She groaned as her breasts spilled over the stretched collar of her shirt, the undersides of her massive melons beginning to show under the hem more by the second. The Rathian maiden stumbled as she shifted her widening stance, prompting an ocean of jiggling in her growing assets. She reached up with her paws and groped her swelling bosom, opening her eyes to behold the girthening greatness of her chest. She stumbled again as she felt her gluteus-VERY-maximus press into cold stone, prompting her to giggle, the sound like bells in a spring rain. She was beginning to outgrow this room! Her words were confirmed as but a moment later her ballooning melons pressed into the opposite wall and began to squish against it, rising to take up more of her vision. By now, if she was visually measuring correctly, her massive mammaries were each... goodness, she estimated each chest-orb was easily as big as a baby elephant! And her trunk was even larger than that, with each butt-cheek as big as an ADULT elephant! As if sensing her disbelief, she felt herself stop growing. But she didn't mind, she was already huge and a veritable pond... no, a LAKE of boob-and-butt-fat! Of course, that wasn't to say she wasn't incredibly-fat overall; she felt a healthy hugeness in her legs, arms, and belly. But none compared with her chest and rear-end! Tala was simply titanic! She giggled as a dumb pun came to her: she was TITanic, really. Tala laid her head forward onto a mattress-of-a-boob, sighing in happy acceptance. Yes, she was glad for this and it made being trapped easier. Eventually, she would come out of her ecstatic high enough to realize she could use her new size to shimmy up and out of the cave. Eventually, she would reunite, and subsequently shock, her friends. Eventually, the world would learn of her majesty. But for now, the Robust Rathian had only herself. And she was going to take as long as she wanted to enjoy her incredibly endowed form. Tala closed her eyes and slept, her immense body always jiggling or quivering thanks to its great girth. She slipped easily into the embrace of sleep, tiredness resulting from the excitement of her change of form and increase of size as well as the previous attempts to escape the cavern. Her new life was looking to be rather swell, she was sure of it.