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      "writing": "“A new sweets shop?? How curious!” Berkut thought to himself as he spotted a brand new building on his usual morning stroll. He went this way semi-regularly, the last time he visited must have been around… A week ago? Yet he didn’t remember any sort of construction or renovation work happening around this area.\n\n\nThe house was quite a tiny one, nestled tightly between two other residential buildings that had been there forever, but looked a lot more cheerful and bright in comparison. While most of the buildings in the area were quite dated, dark and without much personality, the small building popped out with its white walls, sparkly red roof and small statues of sweets and candy plastered all over it. There was a small chimney coming out the top letting out pink, cake-scented smoke, and the two big windows at the front gave a great view of the wonderfully photogenic cakes and sweets being sold inside. The whole place was downright impossible to ignore, especially for someone like Berkut, who happened to be obsessed with such sugary things.\n\n\nImmediately, a debate brewed itself up in the wolf’s fluffy head. On the one hand, he was trying to cut back on all the sugar he was eating, as he was definitely not getting thinner these days… Unlike his wallet, from which the bills just kept disappearing month after month. On the other hand, though… Well, it was a brand new sweets shop in town! The struggle was real.\n\n\nBut to anyone who really knows Berkut, his decision shouldn’t be a big surprise. After just a few seconds, he was already looking around inside, gulping his drool every couple of seconds upon seeing the most delicious-looking treats he’d ever laid his eyes upon. There were massive buckets full of hundreds, if not thousands of different flavors- many of which, he’d never heard of before, but was already dying to try.\n\n\nThere were a few shopping baskets at the entrance, but unlike all the candy stores he’d been in, there was a sign that also encouraged sampling before any payment occurred at all: Try whatever you want, pay at the counter later! Needless to say, Berkut quickly got to gobbling up all the different wild, interesting flavors that the shop had to offer: fairy floss, unicorn dust, magic caramel…\n\n\nIndeed, there seemed to be a very magical atmosphere inside of the shop… And not just because of all the delicious treats everywhere the eye could see. Even though he usually started feeling like he had a bit too much sugar after a dozen or so pieces of candy, this time, he felt like he could eat up the entire place and still not feel full or satiated at all. By the time he got to the cakes, he was sure he must have eaten roughly a kilogram of candy at that point… But there was absolutely no way he could have passed up on the cakes!!\n\n\nThere were plenty of forks prepared at the sampling table for any eager guest, and so Berkut was quick to jump in and start eating whatever was on the board. The pieces of cake were quite small, but very elegantly prepared- and of course, delicious. The wolf even found some of them hard to believe to be real; the cakes were made with such perfect form and decoration, that they looked like they were plastic display pieces, until Berkut sliced into them with his fork and saw that they were all, indeed, real. Perfectly spongy, wet but not soggy on the inside, delicious cream spilling out from within the layers, tasting wonderfully perfect with each bite.\n\n\nThe sweets lover felt like he was taken up to heaven with each new taste, and he simply could not stop eating. Every once in a while, some part of his mind tried telling him not to overeat- like he always did- but he simply could not listen to those warnings when the food was THIS good. The chocolate was sweet, but not too sweet. The fruit fillings tasted exactly like the fresh fruits harvested from the plants. The creams were never too heavy, never too light… And he could eat any piece of cake after any other, yet the flavors were never off. Oh, how happy he was with his decision to pay a visit! How delicious and perfect the world was…\n\n\nSuddenly, the rational part of his mind finally managed to overcome the sugar-rushed, dopamine-hungry part of his brain, as he suddenly came to a halt, and realized just how much he was going to have to pay for all that. He carefully looked at the sampling table, seeing how he’d consumed all, but a few of the cakes on there, only leaving the dirty, empty plates in his wake. The empty candy wrappers scattered all around the place… Uncountable. A feeling of dizziness and nervousness came over him, all with a heavy sense of regret. How was he going to pay for all this?\n\n\nAt first, he thought of simply dine and dashing; there was no way he could pay the bill for so many sweets, if normally he couldn’t even get himself to buy two packets of candy at once? But in the end, the honesty in him was victorious, and he decided to do the right thing, dragging himself to the counter to make his payment. There, a mysterious, yet whimsical-looking magic dragon was already waiting for him, smiling in a friendly manner.\n\n\nHe was an Eastern dragon, standing tall with a long, snake-like body and a tail that extended far beyond his legs and swept the floor with its cotton candy-like tuft at the end. His color scheme was reminiscent of Christmas candy cane: The large scales that covered his body were alternatingly red and white in color, with thin stranded, pinkish-white hair on his head and below his elbows. The two horns poking out from the top of his white head looked like rainbow lollipops, and his long mustache seemed like two strands of white licorice growing out from next to his wide nose. At first sight, he could have easily been mistaken for a statue made of candy; his vibrant colors, the way he shone, and the deliciously sweet smell of his body seemed absolutely delicious, but he really did seem to be alive.\n\n\n“How was everything?” He asked Berkut, looking at all the empty plates and wrappers he’d left behind. His voice was deep, yet playful, like a circus announcer- or indeed, the enthusiastic owner of a magical candy shop. “I can see you’ve tried quite a big part of our collection… But rest assured, there’s still plenty to go if you’re in the mood to snack again sometime!”\n\n\n“Oh, oh, I could not think of sweets right now, I’m so full…” Berkut sighed, holding his belly, which had grown noticeably larger than when he first came in. “I have some bad news, though… I don’t quite remember everything I’ve had, so… How much do I owe?”\n\n\n“Oh, that’s no problem. We do all the counting and measuring using magic! The only thing you have to do is to eat! And to pay, of course…” The shopkeeper winked at the wolf, who looked at the ground shyly, still unsure whether he could pay the bill.\n\n\n“Let’s look here…” The dragon pulled out a magical paper scroll that seemed to manifest itself below the counter, listing all the different things the client consumed during his visit. “Thirty-five pieces of candy, thirty-two feet of licorice, fifty-five mini pies, twenty plates of cake, three tables of milk chocolate, two tables of dark chocolate, three big bottles of soda, and one half of a big bowl of ice cream. W-was everything okay with the ice cream?”\n\n\n“Oh y-yes, the ice cream was wonderful!” Berkut said nervously, still in shock from what he’d just heard. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more: The fact that everything was documented so thoroughly, or that he really did stuff himself with so many things in one sitting. “I just had too much sugar for one day I think, that’s all…”\n\n\n“That is understandable, especially if you’re not used to eating such quantities all at once!” The dragon smiled, putting the cartoonishly long scroll on the table, which displayed every single piece of sweet that the wolf consumed by name. “Anyway, here is your total at the bottom. 562 dollars and 25 cents! Is that cash or card, sir?”\n\n\nBerkut looked at the bill with wide eyes, only now realizing just how much he’d gone outside of his spending budget. That amount of money was more than he could put away in an entire year, let alone to just spend during one snacking session at a fancy pantsy magic sweets store he just happened to stumble into! He was usually a very honest and upstanding citizen, but this time, he decided that dashing was his only option. He gulped, looking at the shopkeeper nervously, before turning around and running for the exit.\n\n\nA strange, chilling feeling ran down the wolf’s spine as he raced towards the door. Something was wrong; the dragon didn’t even shout after him, or try to run and stop him from exiting, even though he owed a massive bill. He was too scared to let himself be bothered by that however, so he jumped at the door without thinking, ready to bolt and never be seen again.\n\n\nBONK\n\n\nHe should have known… Berkut fell right on his butt on the floor, seeing stars around his head after bumping it pretty hard on the glass. He was disoriented for a second, but his will to escape didn’t go away; after recollecting himself a little bit, he stood up and continued pushing and pulling, pawing and kicking on the door in an attempt to pry it open and win his freedom.\n\n\n“Oh, Berkut…” The shopkeeper dragon giggled to himself as he emerged from behind the counter and walked up behind the desperate, panicking wolf. “Didn’t you expect a magical creature, such as I, to be able to lock a shop’s doors to prevent sticky-handed thieves from getting out?”\n\n\nBerkut didn’t reply, only whined desperately as he finally gave up on trying to force the door open. If it really was being held shut by magic, he truly stood no choice… He had no other option, and although he couldn’t look at the dragon out of shame and embarrassment, he kept listening to what he had to say.\n\n\n“Worry not, though!” The dragon put his clawed hand on the shoulder of his naughty customer. “You are not in trouble. This is thanks to one of our store policies, which I’m sure you haven’t bothered to read: Customers who find themselves unable to pay may pay for their consumption in voluntary labor! At a rate of $4 an hour, you can work towards paying for everything you’ve eaten~”\n\n\nThe wolf looked at the shopkeeper, blinking as he tried to process all the information and calculate just how long he’d have to be there to pay for everything. Four bucks really wasn’t a lot- far below the minimum wage in his area- but he definitely did prefer it over getting charges and possibly ending up in jail… He nodded reluctantly, waiting for the dragon to explain things further.\n\n\n“Come with me~” The dragon held out his hand, which the wolf slowly accepted, and let himself be led to the back of the store, where a small door was built. Even Berkut had to lean forward to fit inside- let alone his companion, who stood several heads taller than him- and his bloated, sugar-filled belly also needed a bit of force to fit through.\n\n\nWhen he finally was through to the other side, the wolf could simply not believe his eyes. He was transported into a vast candyland, reaching far and wide where the eye could see- there was absolutely no way this all could have fit into that tiny building in this quaint little residential area, but there it was, all in front of him with the power of magic. Cotton candy clouds, chocolate rivers, lollipop flowers and tiny critters crawling about made of gummy candy. Berkut felt like he was transported into a sugar-powered fever dream, but the smells, sounds, even the sweet flavored air in his mouth all confirmed that it was real. He wanted to say something, but he was completely lost for words.\n\n\n“Welcome behind the scenes! This is where all the deliciousness is produced!” The dragon explained after letting his guest admire the view for a minute or two. “Those gingerbread houses over there are where the sweets are made, baked and assembled, and the raw materials are collected from the rest of the world by my employees- including you, my friend!”\n\n\n“Wow…” Berkut finally managed to produce some sound, as he crouched down to pick a blade of grass from the ground and eat it. Lemon flavored…\n\n\n“Do keep in mind that anything you eat WILL be added to your bill!” The shopkeeper warned, before continuing his explanation. “Your task for today will be an easy one. You’ll collect chocolate from the rivers and bring it to the factories, one bucket at a time! Be careful not to fall in, though… I’ve heard it’s awfully difficult to get out!”\n\n\n“Understood, sir!” Berkut nodded, and as soon as he did, two candy-cane colored buckets popped into his hands out of nowhere. The shore of the nearest river was not far from where they stood, so he stumbled on over and filled them both with the delicious-smelling liquid. They were quite heavy, but manageable… Definitely better than getting a criminal record!\n\n\n“There we go, you’re a natural!” The dragon clapped, before taking flight, levitating in front of his newest employee. “Just carry ‘em to the factory and dump ‘em down into one of those big tubs of chocolate there. Do that until I come back to check on how you’re doing! Have a sweet day~”\n\n\n“Thank you, sir!” The wolf replied, already panting from the weight of his chocolate buckets as he turned around and headed towards the gingerbread houses. He was still slightly in disbelief about everything happening around him; it all went down so fast, from sitting at the tables eating cake, to carrying buckets of chocolate in a secret candyland hidden in the back of the sweets shop… He was still half-expecting to wake up and find out it was all just a dream.\n\n\nDespite the views being quite nice and him coming across new and interesting stuff from time to time, Berkut’s day still went quite slow and cumbersome. Carrying buckets was far from his dream job, and not being able to eat any of the deliciousness that surrounded him was just another layer of torture for him. Although he had eaten enough calories for the next two weeks during his gluttonous visit to the store that morning, his belly was already rumbling from time to time, especially when he laid eyes on any particularly delicious-looking pieces of food, or the scent of the chocolate river hit him just right.\n\n\nAfter a while, it was obvious that his sugar rush was wearing out, and quickly turning into a sugar crash. Berkut found it harder and harder to focus, to carry big weights, and eventually, to balance. He stumbled over to the milk chocolate river to get yet another two buckets full of chocolate, but when he leaned over the stream, he must have somehow slipped. He saw the chocolate coming towards him for a split second, and the very next moment, he was already submerged in the thick, sugary liquid that carried him downstream. The wolf panicked; He wasn’t a great swimmer to begin with… Let alone on a full stomach… Let alone so tired… Let alone in a thick, sticky substance that kept getting all into his beautiful fur, dragging him down no matter how hard he fought against it.\n\n\n“HELP!” He managed to yell out before the stream swallowed him whole, dragging him down below and carrying him further down. He had no idea where he was, or where he would end up at the end… He just wanted out, he wanted to be on dry land. In a few moments, there was no part of his body left that was not covered in chocolate. His eyes were sealed shut, his mouth and nose filled, and his once sparkly clean, fluffy fur drenched like a wet rag in that sticky, thick goo. There was no way this could end well for him- he thought as he desperately waited for someone to help him out of this sticky situation.\n\n\nLuckily for him, the watchful eyes of the shopkeeper dragon didn’t let him drown. After having lost all his power to fight against the current, Berkut finally felt something lift him out and wipe away the chocolate from his nose, allowing him to breathe. He tried to move, to clean his face from the goo, shake it out of his fur, or simply just to thank his savior… But the chocolate seemed to rapidly harden around him, freezing him in the same silly ragdoll position as he was when he was lifted out.\n\n\nBecause his ears were entirely filled with chocolate, he couldn’t really hear or make out what was happening around him. All he could feel was that he was placed upright on his feet… And simply left there, wherever he was. Still encased in chocolate that stuck tightly to him and kept all of his features visible from the outside, from his drenched fur, to the panicked expression on his face. Although he didn’t know it himself, he had become a chocolate statue on display at the store, visible from the window for every passerby to see and laugh at. This wasn’t the kind of first day he imagined for himself on the job…\n\n\n—\n\n\nOnce every last customer had left the store for the day, and the door closed with the familiar jingle of the bell on top of it, Berkut felt himself be lifted from his spot in the window. It was the dragon picking him up, he could feel it… But where was he being taken?\n\n\nAll of a sudden, his chocolate cover was broken, shattered into hundreds of little pieces that all flew away from the wolf. He fell on the floor, panting; his fur was clean again, no traces of chocolate in any of his openings either, which made him feel extremely relieved at first… But only until he saw the dragon standing in front of him, with a firm expression on his face.\n\n\n“Well, well… Looks like the first day on the job turned out a little adventurous for ya?” He asked. They were standing in the candyland backroom again, in the exact same spot where they started the previous day.\n\n\n“I’m so sorry sir…” Berkut whined, kneeling down on the grass in desperation. “I tried my best, but I fell in the river… And then things happened so fast… I swear, I didn’t mean to slack off!”\n\n\n“Well, the good news is that being on display also counts as work!” The dragon petted his employee on the head reassuringly. “Although the hourly wage is a bit lower. Today, I’ll let you try something different, as I’m sure you’re tired of chocolate; you’ll be working with gummy candy!”\n\n\n“Yay!” Berkut’s eyes lit up for a moment as he learned he wouldn’t be dealing with chocolate again- it was one of his favorite foods, but his previous shift made him wish he’d never have to taste it again. “What will I be doing exactly?”\n\n\n“You’ll be fighting the jelly creatures over in the sugar fields!” The shopkeeper explained, pointing to a bright green patch over in the distance. “They keep vandalizing our crops… But if you cut them into nice, small pieces, they can be sold as sour gummies!”\n\n\n“Understood, sir!” Berkut saluted, and immediately, a candy cane sword spawned in his paw. He looked at it with admiration, how shiny, sharp, and oddly sweet looking it was. He wielded it in the air- already felt like a natural! “I’m ready to protect the sugar fields!”\n\n\n“Very well then. Good luck, warrior!” With that, the dragon snapped his fingers, and the wolf was magically teleported to the fields in the blink of an eye. He was quite startled by the sudden change, but quickly regained himself to hold his footing; enemies could appear at any moment.\n\n\nAnd appear, they did. Big, stretchy blobs of all shapes and sizes slowly made their way towards Berkut, bouncing on the ground and grunting with a weird, creepy voice. Only when they got closer, did the wolf see that they also had mouths-  and although there weren’t any sharp teeth inside, they were still enough to keep the nervous sugar warrior on edge.\n\n\nThe first few were fairly easy to deal with; the blobs didn’t move fast, and they definitely weren’t very smart either, letting Berkut jump out of their way with ease, slicing them open with his sharp candy cane sword. It was quite satisfying to see them split so perfectly with a quiet, rubbery tear, and fall on the ground motionlessly. He’d then move on to slice them into multiple smaller pieces, before packing them into one of the many bags that were prepared for him.\n\n\nAs time went on, however, things started getting more and more difficult. The creatures didn’t get faster or smarter, but they had one trick up their sleeves; they slowly outnumbered the lone wolf. They just kept popping up on the horizon, one after the other from every direction, making Berkut spin around wildly to try to get them all. Soon, he didn’t even bother to slice the slain ones up even further, as he just focused on keeping himself from being bitten.\n\n\nThe field was vast and empty, with nowhere for him to hide, or even try to get an advantage point. The blobs slowly overwhelmed him, no matter how hard he fought, and he was undeniably getting more and more tired. And then it happened.\n\n\nIt was only a nibble in his left arm, Berkut barely felt it, but what happened afterwards was very noticeable; the wolf had completely lost control of that limb, and it just kept flopping about like he had no bones or muscles inside to control it. Scared and slipping into a panic, he fought harder and harder to keep the monsters at bay, but seemingly the harder he tried, the more difficult it got.\n\n\nOne nibble was followed by the other in the same arm, which didn’t change much by feel… But when Berkut looked down, he saw with horror that his arm had turned into a long gummy worm like appendage, gray and red in color, just flopping about as if part of him had simply transformed into gummy candy.\n\n\nThis distraction didn’t make his job easier one bit. He tried to keep his attention away from the lost limb, but all that became impossible when another bite finally got his other arm- the one he was holding the sword in. His arm turned limp and rubbery again, and after a second bite, transformed into candy just like the first. He was left without any way to fight.\n\n\nDisarmed and horrified, Berkut decided to flee the scene before it was too late. He dropped his sword and took to running, his long gummy arms flailing behind him uncomfortably as he sprinted, but to his dismay, he had been completely surrounded, and could only run into a wall of blob creatures that kept trying to bite him. Another bite to his right leg- now that was made of candy too. He kept hopping forward on his remaining one, but that couldn’t last for long either; before long, the wolf fell on the ground, transformed entirely into one big, juicy gummy candy, shaped and colored exactly like the wolf he was before being transformed.\n\n\nOf course, Berkut didn’t just stay there on the floor for the rest of his shift, being useless. Just like when he was encased in chocolate, he was picked up again, and carried to the front of the shop to be seen by all who visited- this time, in one of the scooping bins that held different gummies of all shapes and sizes. He was there the whole day, feeling as people opened the tub and took big scoops out of it, wondering if he’d be chosen to be eaten. \n—\n\n\nThanks to magic- or maybe just sheer luck- however, he went the whole shift without being bought, and after the shop closed, he was standing in front of the dragon once again, waiting for further instructions.\n\n\n“Well! Wasn’t that interesting~?” The dragon looked at his employee, who was still shaking a little bit from having just been transformed back from flexible, shaky jelly to a flesh and bone wolf. “You managed to make us quite a bit of gummy candy, that’s nice! Although we had to send in a replacement…”\n\n\n“Yes sir! I tried my best!” Berkut nodded, glancing over at the field he had worked on the previous day, seeing the hundreds of bags of jelly that he’d harvested. “What is my task for today?”\n\n\n“Eager to work, that’s nice to see~” The shopkeeper smiled, floating closer to the wolf. “I see you’re pretty sweaty and hot today… So why not go and cool down in the ice mines? That’s where our ice cream is made!”\n\n\n“T-the ice mines?” Berkut asked with a slight bit of doubt, but before he could think about it too much, he was already teleported to a freezing cold area, surrounded by snow, ice and mountains wherever his eyes could see.\n\n\n“Here, the snow is made out of vanilla ice cream!” The dragon’s familiar voice explained from behind, but when Berkut turned to look at him, there was no one there. “Your job is to shovel as much of it as you can onto that dump truck over there!”\n\n\nStanding not too far from him was indeed a small truck, made of gingerbread and candies. The engine was running, although Berkut couldn’t see inside to see who was driving it. The back of the storage compartment was open, making it pretty clear what his task was. A shovel appeared in his hand; it was time to get to work.\n\n\nShoveling snow- or vanilla ice cream or whatever it was- proved to be the most difficult and tedious task yet. Berkut started by shoveling whatever snow was around the truck into it, but after a while, he had to carry it from further and further away, as his shovel started hitting the ground. At first, he had no problem lifting and carrying, but his muscles, already aching from working so much the previous two days, were slowly starting to give up, and work only got harder and harder. He was glad to be paid by the hour and not by the ton… But he couldn’t take too many rests, or it would be considered slacking off.\n\n\nMore than his fatigue, however, the wolf was inconvenienced by the extreme cold temperatures in the “mine”. His thick, winter fur coat should have been enough to insulate him while the constant moving kept him warm, but after just a few minutes of working, snow suddenly started falling from the sky. The cold, sugary ice cream quickly seeped into his fur and made it sticky, and bit by bit, made him less and less able to protect himself from the extreme temperatures.\n\n\nBefore long, poor Berkut was covered head to toe in ice cream. At first, it dripped off his body, but as he cooled, soon the dripping dessert began freezing to him. His fur, so majestic and fluffy when he began work, was now cracking with every movement, completely ruined by the sugar and the frozen water. He wanted to just lie down and give up, but that damned truck just didn’t want to fill up… He had to keep moving, he had to keep working…\n\n\nAfter what felt like an eternity, Berkut finally felt that he wasn’t strong enough to work anymore. He just had to sit down for a while, just take a little break… The snow was falling even heavier than before, but he couldn’t be bothered anymore. He just found the nearest candy rock to sit on, and breathed heavily as the ice cream snow slowly collected on top of him, and covered him whole.\n\n\nAt that point, there was nothing else he could do; his muscles just didn’t want to move anymore, and his body felt as though it had started to melt in the most literal sense. He felt cold- the coldest he’d felt in his entire life- yet he wasn’t shaking anymore. Sitting on that rock, not even halfway done with his work, he slowly transformed into a living vanilla ice cream statue.\n\n\nAnd like all beautiful ice cream statues, he had to be transported to the ice cream counter! There he stood for the rest of his shift with a big red cherry on the top of his head, to be admired by the guests among the other statues- many of which were also so realistic, that one could only wonder if they were fellow unfortunate mine workers as well. Every once in a while, the scoop took a little bit out of him to serve to a customer, but never enough to make him fall over or collapse, while his body magically regenerated itself. Berkut was frozen cold and yearned to cuddle next to a hot furnace more than he ever had, but at least he could be thankful that he didn’t have to be shovelling anymore. Being a living ice cream statue was a lot easier of a job…\n\n\n—\n\n\n“Oh… Oh gosh, finally!” Berkut lay down in the fresh grass at the start of his new workday, soaking in the warm rays of the morning sunshine. “I thought I was going to freeze to death in there… Or at least catch a… sneeze… Cold! There it is…”\n\n\n“Working is pretty tough, huh?” The shopkeeper dragon smiled patiently as he let his employee regenerate a little bit in the sun. “Well, you know… There is also the option of not trying to steal from my business! But I’ll be nice to you today and send you somewhere warm.”\n\n\n“Please do…” The wolf sighed, getting up from the ground when he felt that his fur had dried in the sun. “Anywhere but the ice cream mines.”\n\n\n“You really don’t have too much time left… Just keep working like you did, and you’ll be done in no time!” The dragon petted the fuzzy wolf on the head and looked at him reassuringly, with a sense of thinly veiled empathy. “Come, let’s visit the cookie factory!”\n\n\nThe gingerbread chimneys of the factory were already in sight, so they didn’t teleport. Instead, the dragon let Berkut hold onto his tail, and flew him to the factories, the two just gliding through the front door. The building was a pretty impressive one: everything was made out of delicious looking decorated gingerbread cookies, including the many interesting, moving machines and gizmos that put the products- the cookies for sale- together in the first place.\n\n\n“Wow!” Berkut, at first, found it difficult to even think of what to say. He was impressed by all the machinery and engineering around him, and enchanted by the delicious, sweet smell- albeit he was already feeling sick from all the sugar he’d consumed in the last couple of days. “Everything is so… Automated here! What am I even gonna do?”\n\n\n“The good news is, you yourself won’t have to do anything! I’m giving you a break!” The shopkeeper smiled, watching Berkut’s confused reaction before continuing. “But of course, that doesn’t mean you’ll be useless. In a moment, you’ll go through the cookie making process as if you were made of dough, and you’ll become a massive decorated cookie to serve as a decoration- or eye-candy, I should say- for the customers in the store!”\n\n\n“O-okay…” Berkut nodded, looking around as he thought about what each of the machines would feel like to go through. But the more he thought, the less confident he got; some of those contraptions looked straight up deadly for a flesh and blood wolf guy to go through. “B-but how will I even…”\n\n\n“Well how about we turn you into a sugary sludge first!” The dragon pointed one of his long clawed fingers at our protagonist and cast a magic spell, causing both of them to levitate. He slowly carried the floating, kicking Berkut over to a big hopper that dispensed sludge onto a conveyor belt below, which supplied it to the rest of the factory. This was apparently the starting point of cookie production.\n\n\nWith that, the wolf suddenly started feeling… Weird. Slimy at first, then more elastic, as his body slowly began to melt and deform, turning into gray and red colored sludge as he started to lose his shape. He slowly melted and dripped into the hopper and travelled downwards to the exit of the hopper, where he’d be dispensed along with the rest of the- non sentient- dough. “And the machines will take care of the rest! See you tomorrow!”\n\n\n“What’s happening to me again…” The wolf thought to himself, unable to speak as his mouth had ceased to exist. He didn’t feel any pain, of course, but the sensations he felt were certainly weird… He’d never been turned into living cookie dough before, after all. With his original sensory organs gone, he’d lost his sense of sight, smell, hearing and taste, but he could somehow still feel everything happening to him in real time. That was probably a side effect of the magic, or maybe just the fact that he was still alive, after all.\n\n\nFirst, the sludge had to be kneaded, as there were still plenty of air bubbles inside. The first thing Berkut felt after several minutes on the conveyor belt was a large amount of pressure that completely spread him apart, before gigantic, heavy rolling pins began to roll up and down his gooey body, making him even flatter. With each roll, Berkut could feel his thickness decreasing, and by the end, he was pretty much flatter than a pancake. Only then did he move on to the next machine, which ended up feeling even stranger.\n\n\nAfter being rolled out, a massive heavy frame was pressed on Berkut’s flat body. Although he couldn’t see it exactly, he could feel that the frame was roughly the shape of an anthropomorphic wolf, complete with a head, four limbs and a tail. The large cookie cutter stencil was pressed hard into the sentient dough, and when it lifted and the excess was removed, a big, blank wolf cookie was left on the belt, traveling on towards its next destination.\n\n\nThe following stop was Berkut’s perfect opportunity to regenerate after his chilly day at work the previous shift: the several hundred degrees hot oven with a burning fire inside! Even just approaching the oven, he could feel that things were getting a lot warmer… At first, it felt great- especially after what he’d gone through- but it just got hotter and hotter and hotter… Until it felt like he was literally being licked by red hot flames, and when the door was closed, there was absolutely no way for fresh air inside anymore. The temperature was increasing rapidly.\n\n\n“Gosh… Oh gosh… It’s so hot in here…” Berkut thought to himself as he was slowly being cooked; the heat was almost unbearable, and there was no way for his body to cool itself without the ability to sweat. He stayed there for several minutes, expanding as his raw dough cooked, until he was finally ready, and transported out of the baking area.\n\n\nAfter a brief period where he was allowed to cool a little bit- which felt like a heavenly relief- the half done Wolf cookie had finally arrived at its final stop before becoming a finished product: the decorating station! His body never lost its gray and red color scheme, but the cool, colored sugary paste that was being squeezed on his body drew out his details perfectly- exactly where everything used to be from his gray belly, red paws and cheeks, and even his black hair.\n\n\nTo finish, the machine also drew him a pair of eyes, ears and a big dot for a nose, finally giving him back his senses. Berkut was finally ready: A big, beautiful cookie ready to be displayed in the store next to all the other, non-sentient cookies.\n\n\nAfter being allowed to properly cool down, he was indeed placed into a big truck, stuffed with pillows to make sure his brittle body didn’t break or get injured at all- and was brought into the store, where the careful hand of the dragon picked him up and put him where he belonged. For the rest of the day, the wolf’s only job remained to stay there, being pretty for all the hungry customers to look at.\n\n\n—\n\n\n“Well, Berkut, it seems like your final workday has arrived!” His boss greeted the exhausted wolf at the start of his fifth shift, looking even more ceremonial than before- even though he always held an aura of festivity. His employee stood in front of him, already stumbling from exhaustion as he waited for (hopefully) his final instructions.\n\n\n“I-is it about to be finally over?” He asked with a hopeful anticipation, having already lost count of the hours he’d pulled through working. Even though he still preferred this over being reported to the police, he couldn’t help but feel like he would’ve had an easier time in jail.\n\n\n“It is indeed… Given you keep doing your work, that is!” The shopkeeper smiled, inching a bit closer to his employee. “But bully for you! For your last day’s task, you’ll barely have to do anything besides looking fabulous for our guests! I’ve noticed you excelled in your tasks of being on display, whether you were made of chocolate, ice cream, gummies or gingerbread. So today, I’ll turn you into an extravagant wolf cake, and put you on display in the central podium, right in the middle of the window and well visible for everyone who enters!”\n\n\n“O-oh…” Berkut really wasn’t sure how to react. Although he didn’t fully want to admit it, being looked at, admired, wanted… It all made him feel pretty special, and being on display all those other days were truly his favorite moments of working- and not just because he didn’t have to do any hard physical labor in the meantime. He was admittedly a little shy, especially to be put in a spot like that, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to refuse such a deal. There was only one doubt in his mind. “B-but are you sure I’ve worked enough to make up for the loss?”\n\n\n“If we calculate with my original offer for an hourly wage, and take into account that you’ve mostly just sat around, being all pretty on the shelf… Probably not!” The dragon explained, smiling. “But because I can see that you’ve truly regretted what you’ve done, and that you’ve been trying to make up for it to the best of your abilities, I’m willing to let the rest of it slide~”\n\n\n“T-thank you!” Berkut stuttered, stepping closer to hug the dragon, who was taken aback quite a bit by the gesture; he was frozen in place for a little while, before returning the hug, wrapping his short arms around the fluffy body of his naughty guest.\n\n\n“There there… But let’s not get sentimental now! You’ve still got work to do~” He said dutifully, before reaching out his hand like he always did before casting a spell, and shooting a beam of magical energy towards the wolf.\n\n\nThe metamorphosis that followed happened slowly, gradually, but was highly fascinating to look at. While all the other transformations were quite instantaneous, this time, it happened stage by stage, turning Berkut from an anthropomorphic furry creature into the sweetest looking cake in the shop. \n\n\nIt all started when he began feeling something strange… Sticky and sugary at his fingertips. Instinctively, he lifted his paw to lick and taste it; his ears perked up instantly as he recognized the taste of his favorite cake ever: Black forest! Chocolate, cherries, cream… A combination that he could never get tired of, and really was the best representation of him as food. His paws, once rough from all the heavy labor, had turned smooth and shiny, as if coated with a hard, sugary icing. His fur seemed to stiffen in places, curling into delicate piped ridges, as if they were rosettes carefully crafted by a skilled baker’s hand.\n\n\n“Mmmh…” Berkut vocalized as he felt his insides start to twist, turn and transform, his organs turning into cake one by one. He would have tried to talk, but his tongue was already made of chocolate sponge cake, his chocolate saliva drooling from the corners of his mouth. Whenever he inhaled, he could only smell the enchantingly sweet smell of cake, further planting in his mind that he was a wolf no more; he was a dessert.\n\n\nAs his organs slowly turned to cake, his body inadvertently began to droop. His soft bones- if he even had any bones left at all by that point- were no longer able to provide support for his body, causing him to slowly lose his anthropomorphic shape and collapse into a tower of soft dough, with only a few defining features sticking out, such as his head and his whipped cream tail.\n\n\nOnce he’s collapsed to a size almost half as tall as he used to be on his feet, his torso could be felt hardening again. As everything inside had transformed and stabilized, his lower body became the solid base for the wolf cake, cylindrical in shape, and made up of layers of chocolate sponge cake and cherry-vanilla cream filling. Although his silhouette was entirely unrecognizable now, the colorful stripes of cake and cream on his body still clearly resembled his fur pattern, and his face had been kept as a smaller, protruding section of the cake, complete with chocolate eyes, cake ears, a strawberry nose, and plenty of chocolate cream to replace his hair. His limbs had mostly retracted , only leaving his enlarged paws outside of the main cake structure, which made four smaller cake-islands besides of the large cylinder, with half strawberries to represent what were once claws in their place.\n\n\nWith that, Berkut’s transformation was finally complete. There he stood, in the middle of the podium with pride, and even though he couldn’t move or even make a sound, his boss could tell that he was very, very proud of how tasty he looked. And how deserving he was of that spot there! If it wasn’t for magic, he could only have been crafted by a master baker, with how perfectly round his base was, how meticulously the vanilla cream had been squeezed and spread in a way to resemble flowing fur, and how adorable his cake face looked; obviously inanimate to the outside observer, yet so full of life… As if the cake really had a soul.\n\n\nAs the morning sun rose above the rooftops across the street, its first rays pierced the storefront glass, flooding the shop with golden light and casting a warm glow over the delicious wolf cake. One by one, the passersby noticed the extravagant dessert sitting inside, each stopping to stare- and drool- for a while… As if it had a magical magnetic power that made it simply irresistible to a hungry sweet tooth. Customers quickly started flooding in, filling the store with rumbling bellies, each wanting to take a bite of the cake. At first, Berkut was quite terrified by all those people wanting to have a taste of him; if everyone got even as much as a single bite, he would be nothing but crumbs by the end of the day! Thankfully for him though, there was a protective glass casing around his sweet, spongy body, leaving the guests only to be able to admire him with their eyes, and not their taste buds.\n\n\nBerkut spent the rest of his day getting compliments, being looked at and admired like a real celebrity. He even overheard some conversations about his picture trending on social media, and people wanting to flock in from all corners of the world to the store, which had just become an overnight sensation. It was completely full all throughout the day, and even at closing time, the dragon had to practically chase guests out of the establishment, as he couldn’t close the doors even an hour after he had officially closed. Berkut was still in his place, looking just as fresh and delicious as he was in the morning; the magic did wonders keeping him in pristine condition. He just stood there until everyone was finally gone, and the dragon could finally transform him back into a wolf when nobody was looking.\n\n\n“Wow, good job!” The dragon clapped excitedly before casting a spell to turn Berkut back into his old self, who transformed almost immediately back into his wolf form, sitting in a cramped pose under the glass cover before it was lifted and he could get out. “You’ve made a real sensation out of my store, thank you!”\n\n\n“N-no problem, really~” Berkut smiled shyly; he was indeed quite proud of himself, but he knew that it was really the magic, doing most of the heavy lifting in leading him to success.\n\n\n“Well, I have to say, you really make a good cake!” His boss smiled, petting him on the head. “And I can tell you also enjoyed working for me. So, how about I make you a deal? I can let you stay here forever! Sitting in my shop, being a living advertisement piece… And I can pay you a big chunk of the income that your publicity generates!”\n\n\n“That’s a… Flattering offer…” The wolf froze slightly at the proposition, staring at the ground with pensive eyes. When he started working at the shop, he never thought he’d be considering a full time position there, but being on display really did stroke his ego… And if the trend continued, it would have also brought him quite a bit of dough! But… What would he spend it on? There was so much more to life than just standing in a display, and watching others drool as they begged to take a bite out of his creamy butt…\n\n\n“But I have to refuse.” He continued, feeling quite sad, but ultimately satisfied with his decision. “Thank you for everything though… It was very fun to work at your shop! I really hope I made up for my initial… Naughtiness~”\n\n\n“You made up for more than I ever could have asked for, Berkut!” The dragon grinned, before reaching behind his back and manifesting a small gift box seemingly out of thin air. “And of course, you’re allowed to go on your way. But please, if you do, take this gift with you!”\n\n\nThe wolf hesitantly took the small box and carefully opened it up, still expecting some sort of trick from the slightly unpredictable dragon. But instead of yet another crazy magic spell, he found something still and delicate nestled inside; It was a miniature cake- no larger than his paw- crafted with impossible precision. The tiny figure was unmistakable: a perfect, scaled-down replica of himself in cake form, just like the one he had been transformed into. Every detail was there, down to the tiny bits of strawberry and the most precise buttercream decorations that made him look so divinely delicious.\n\n\n“Take it; that’s yours to keep.” The dragon floated back, letting Berkut walk to the door for the first time since he started working, showing that he really was done. “It’s real cake! You may feel free to eat it, or keep it to admire for as long as you want. My magic will make sure it never expires~”\n\n\nBerkut nodded, looking thankfully into the smiling dragon’s eyes. It was already late, and he was sure that his nervous friends were already looking for him everywhere. He had to rush home, but he could still hear the friendly voice of his former boss from the door: “Oh, and please come and visit us again sometime!”"
    },
    ".description.json": {
      "description": "Commissions open! Check out my page for more info~\nCommissioned by: @@Shadowdust"
    },
    ".writing.json": {
      "writing": "“A new sweets shop?? How curious!” Berkut thought to himself as he spotted a brand new building on his usual morning stroll. He went this way semi-regularly, the last time he visited must have been around… A week ago? Yet he didn’t remember any sort of construction or renovation work happening around this area.\n\n\nThe house was quite a tiny one, nestled tightly between two other residential buildings that had been there forever, but looked a lot more cheerful and bright in comparison. While most of the buildings in the area were quite dated, dark and without much personality, the small building popped out with its white walls, sparkly red roof and small statues of sweets and candy plastered all over it. There was a small chimney coming out the top letting out pink, cake-scented smoke, and the two big windows at the front gave a great view of the wonderfully photogenic cakes and sweets being sold inside. The whole place was downright impossible to ignore, especially for someone like Berkut, who happened to be obsessed with such sugary things.\n\n\nImmediately, a debate brewed itself up in the wolf’s fluffy head. On the one hand, he was trying to cut back on all the sugar he was eating, as he was definitely not getting thinner these days… Unlike his wallet, from which the bills just kept disappearing month after month. On the other hand, though… Well, it was a brand new sweets shop in town! The struggle was real.\n\n\nBut to anyone who really knows Berkut, his decision shouldn’t be a big surprise. After just a few seconds, he was already looking around inside, gulping his drool every couple of seconds upon seeing the most delicious-looking treats he’d ever laid his eyes upon. There were massive buckets full of hundreds, if not thousands of different flavors- many of which, he’d never heard of before, but was already dying to try.\n\n\nThere were a few shopping baskets at the entrance, but unlike all the candy stores he’d been in, there was a sign that also encouraged sampling before any payment occurred at all: Try whatever you want, pay at the counter later! Needless to say, Berkut quickly got to gobbling up all the different wild, interesting flavors that the shop had to offer: fairy floss, unicorn dust, magic caramel…\n\n\nIndeed, there seemed to be a very magical atmosphere inside of the shop… And not just because of all the delicious treats everywhere the eye could see. Even though he usually started feeling like he had a bit too much sugar after a dozen or so pieces of candy, this time, he felt like he could eat up the entire place and still not feel full or satiated at all. By the time he got to the cakes, he was sure he must have eaten roughly a kilogram of candy at that point… But there was absolutely no way he could have passed up on the cakes!!\n\n\nThere were plenty of forks prepared at the sampling table for any eager guest, and so Berkut was quick to jump in and start eating whatever was on the board. The pieces of cake were quite small, but very elegantly prepared- and of course, delicious. The wolf even found some of them hard to believe to be real; the cakes were made with such perfect form and decoration, that they looked like they were plastic display pieces, until Berkut sliced into them with his fork and saw that they were all, indeed, real. Perfectly spongy, wet but not soggy on the inside, delicious cream spilling out from within the layers, tasting wonderfully perfect with each bite.\n\n\nThe sweets lover felt like he was taken up to heaven with each new taste, and he simply could not stop eating. Every once in a while, some part of his mind tried telling him not to overeat- like he always did- but he simply could not listen to those warnings when the food was THIS good. The chocolate was sweet, but not too sweet. The fruit fillings tasted exactly like the fresh fruits harvested from the plants. The creams were never too heavy, never too light… And he could eat any piece of cake after any other, yet the flavors were never off. Oh, how happy he was with his decision to pay a visit! How delicious and perfect the world was…\n\n\nSuddenly, the rational part of his mind finally managed to overcome the sugar-rushed, dopamine-hungry part of his brain, as he suddenly came to a halt, and realized just how much he was going to have to pay for all that. He carefully looked at the sampling table, seeing how he’d consumed all, but a few of the cakes on there, only leaving the dirty, empty plates in his wake. The empty candy wrappers scattered all around the place… Uncountable. A feeling of dizziness and nervousness came over him, all with a heavy sense of regret. How was he going to pay for all this?\n\n\nAt first, he thought of simply dine and dashing; there was no way he could pay the bill for so many sweets, if normally he couldn’t even get himself to buy two packets of candy at once? But in the end, the honesty in him was victorious, and he decided to do the right thing, dragging himself to the counter to make his payment. There, a mysterious, yet whimsical-looking magic dragon was already waiting for him, smiling in a friendly manner.\n\n\nHe was an Eastern dragon, standing tall with a long, snake-like body and a tail that extended far beyond his legs and swept the floor with its cotton candy-like tuft at the end. His color scheme was reminiscent of Christmas candy cane: The large scales that covered his body were alternatingly red and white in color, with thin stranded, pinkish-white hair on his head and below his elbows. The two horns poking out from the top of his white head looked like rainbow lollipops, and his long mustache seemed like two strands of white licorice growing out from next to his wide nose. At first sight, he could have easily been mistaken for a statue made of candy; his vibrant colors, the way he shone, and the deliciously sweet smell of his body seemed absolutely delicious, but he really did seem to be alive.\n\n\n“How was everything?” He asked Berkut, looking at all the empty plates and wrappers he’d left behind. His voice was deep, yet playful, like a circus announcer- or indeed, the enthusiastic owner of a magical candy shop. “I can see you’ve tried quite a big part of our collection… But rest assured, there’s still plenty to go if you’re in the mood to snack again sometime!”\n\n\n“Oh, oh, I could not think of sweets right now, I’m so full…” Berkut sighed, holding his belly, which had grown noticeably larger than when he first came in. “I have some bad news, though… I don’t quite remember everything I’ve had, so… How much do I owe?”\n\n\n“Oh, that’s no problem. We do all the counting and measuring using magic! The only thing you have to do is to eat! And to pay, of course…” The shopkeeper winked at the wolf, who looked at the ground shyly, still unsure whether he could pay the bill.\n\n\n“Let’s look here…” The dragon pulled out a magical paper scroll that seemed to manifest itself below the counter, listing all the different things the client consumed during his visit. “Thirty-five pieces of candy, thirty-two feet of licorice, fifty-five mini pies, twenty plates of cake, three tables of milk chocolate, two tables of dark chocolate, three big bottles of soda, and one half of a big bowl of ice cream. W-was everything okay with the ice cream?”\n\n\n“Oh y-yes, the ice cream was wonderful!” Berkut said nervously, still in shock from what he’d just heard. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more: The fact that everything was documented so thoroughly, or that he really did stuff himself with so many things in one sitting. “I just had too much sugar for one day I think, that’s all…”\n\n\n“That is understandable, especially if you’re not used to eating such quantities all at once!” The dragon smiled, putting the cartoonishly long scroll on the table, which displayed every single piece of sweet that the wolf consumed by name. “Anyway, here is your total at the bottom. 562 dollars and 25 cents! Is that cash or card, sir?”\n\n\nBerkut looked at the bill with wide eyes, only now realizing just how much he’d gone outside of his spending budget. That amount of money was more than he could put away in an entire year, let alone to just spend during one snacking session at a fancy pantsy magic sweets store he just happened to stumble into! He was usually a very honest and upstanding citizen, but this time, he decided that dashing was his only option. He gulped, looking at the shopkeeper nervously, before turning around and running for the exit.\n\n\nA strange, chilling feeling ran down the wolf’s spine as he raced towards the door. Something was wrong; the dragon didn’t even shout after him, or try to run and stop him from exiting, even though he owed a massive bill. He was too scared to let himself be bothered by that however, so he jumped at the door without thinking, ready to bolt and never be seen again.\n\n\nBONK\n\n\nHe should have known… Berkut fell right on his butt on the floor, seeing stars around his head after bumping it pretty hard on the glass. He was disoriented for a second, but his will to escape didn’t go away; after recollecting himself a little bit, he stood up and continued pushing and pulling, pawing and kicking on the door in an attempt to pry it open and win his freedom.\n\n\n“Oh, Berkut…” The shopkeeper dragon giggled to himself as he emerged from behind the counter and walked up behind the desperate, panicking wolf. “Didn’t you expect a magical creature, such as I, to be able to lock a shop’s doors to prevent sticky-handed thieves from getting out?”\n\n\nBerkut didn’t reply, only whined desperately as he finally gave up on trying to force the door open. If it really was being held shut by magic, he truly stood no choice… He had no other option, and although he couldn’t look at the dragon out of shame and embarrassment, he kept listening to what he had to say.\n\n\n“Worry not, though!” The dragon put his clawed hand on the shoulder of his naughty customer. “You are not in trouble. This is thanks to one of our store policies, which I’m sure you haven’t bothered to read: Customers who find themselves unable to pay may pay for their consumption in voluntary labor! At a rate of $4 an hour, you can work towards paying for everything you’ve eaten~”\n\n\nThe wolf looked at the shopkeeper, blinking as he tried to process all the information and calculate just how long he’d have to be there to pay for everything. Four bucks really wasn’t a lot- far below the minimum wage in his area- but he definitely did prefer it over getting charges and possibly ending up in jail… He nodded reluctantly, waiting for the dragon to explain things further.\n\n\n“Come with me~” The dragon held out his hand, which the wolf slowly accepted, and let himself be led to the back of the store, where a small door was built. Even Berkut had to lean forward to fit inside- let alone his companion, who stood several heads taller than him- and his bloated, sugar-filled belly also needed a bit of force to fit through.\n\n\nWhen he finally was through to the other side, the wolf could simply not believe his eyes. He was transported into a vast candyland, reaching far and wide where the eye could see- there was absolutely no way this all could have fit into that tiny building in this quaint little residential area, but there it was, all in front of him with the power of magic. Cotton candy clouds, chocolate rivers, lollipop flowers and tiny critters crawling about made of gummy candy. Berkut felt like he was transported into a sugar-powered fever dream, but the smells, sounds, even the sweet flavored air in his mouth all confirmed that it was real. He wanted to say something, but he was completely lost for words.\n\n\n“Welcome behind the scenes! This is where all the deliciousness is produced!” The dragon explained after letting his guest admire the view for a minute or two. “Those gingerbread houses over there are where the sweets are made, baked and assembled, and the raw materials are collected from the rest of the world by my employees- including you, my friend!”\n\n\n“Wow…” Berkut finally managed to produce some sound, as he crouched down to pick a blade of grass from the ground and eat it. Lemon flavored…\n\n\n“Do keep in mind that anything you eat WILL be added to your bill!” The shopkeeper warned, before continuing his explanation. “Your task for today will be an easy one. You’ll collect chocolate from the rivers and bring it to the factories, one bucket at a time! Be careful not to fall in, though… I’ve heard it’s awfully difficult to get out!”\n\n\n“Understood, sir!” Berkut nodded, and as soon as he did, two candy-cane colored buckets popped into his hands out of nowhere. The shore of the nearest river was not far from where they stood, so he stumbled on over and filled them both with the delicious-smelling liquid. They were quite heavy, but manageable… Definitely better than getting a criminal record!\n\n\n“There we go, you’re a natural!” The dragon clapped, before taking flight, levitating in front of his newest employee. “Just carry ‘em to the factory and dump ‘em down into one of those big tubs of chocolate there. Do that until I come back to check on how you’re doing! Have a sweet day~”\n\n\n“Thank you, sir!” The wolf replied, already panting from the weight of his chocolate buckets as he turned around and headed towards the gingerbread houses. He was still slightly in disbelief about everything happening around him; it all went down so fast, from sitting at the tables eating cake, to carrying buckets of chocolate in a secret candyland hidden in the back of the sweets shop… He was still half-expecting to wake up and find out it was all just a dream.\n\n\nDespite the views being quite nice and him coming across new and interesting stuff from time to time, Berkut’s day still went quite slow and cumbersome. Carrying buckets was far from his dream job, and not being able to eat any of the deliciousness that surrounded him was just another layer of torture for him. Although he had eaten enough calories for the next two weeks during his gluttonous visit to the store that morning, his belly was already rumbling from time to time, especially when he laid eyes on any particularly delicious-looking pieces of food, or the scent of the chocolate river hit him just right.\n\n\nAfter a while, it was obvious that his sugar rush was wearing out, and quickly turning into a sugar crash. Berkut found it harder and harder to focus, to carry big weights, and eventually, to balance. He stumbled over to the milk chocolate river to get yet another two buckets full of chocolate, but when he leaned over the stream, he must have somehow slipped. He saw the chocolate coming towards him for a split second, and the very next moment, he was already submerged in the thick, sugary liquid that carried him downstream. The wolf panicked; He wasn’t a great swimmer to begin with… Let alone on a full stomach… Let alone so tired… Let alone in a thick, sticky substance that kept getting all into his beautiful fur, dragging him down no matter how hard he fought against it.\n\n\n“HELP!” He managed to yell out before the stream swallowed him whole, dragging him down below and carrying him further down. He had no idea where he was, or where he would end up at the end… He just wanted out, he wanted to be on dry land. In a few moments, there was no part of his body left that was not covered in chocolate. His eyes were sealed shut, his mouth and nose filled, and his once sparkly clean, fluffy fur drenched like a wet rag in that sticky, thick goo. There was no way this could end well for him- he thought as he desperately waited for someone to help him out of this sticky situation.\n\n\nLuckily for him, the watchful eyes of the shopkeeper dragon didn’t let him drown. After having lost all his power to fight against the current, Berkut finally felt something lift him out and wipe away the chocolate from his nose, allowing him to breathe. He tried to move, to clean his face from the goo, shake it out of his fur, or simply just to thank his savior… But the chocolate seemed to rapidly harden around him, freezing him in the same silly ragdoll position as he was when he was lifted out.\n\n\nBecause his ears were entirely filled with chocolate, he couldn’t really hear or make out what was happening around him. All he could feel was that he was placed upright on his feet… And simply left there, wherever he was. Still encased in chocolate that stuck tightly to him and kept all of his features visible from the outside, from his drenched fur, to the panicked expression on his face. Although he didn’t know it himself, he had become a chocolate statue on display at the store, visible from the window for every passerby to see and laugh at. This wasn’t the kind of first day he imagined for himself on the job…\n\n\n—\n\n\nOnce every last customer had left the store for the day, and the door closed with the familiar jingle of the bell on top of it, Berkut felt himself be lifted from his spot in the window. It was the dragon picking him up, he could feel it… But where was he being taken?\n\n\nAll of a sudden, his chocolate cover was broken, shattered into hundreds of little pieces that all flew away from the wolf. He fell on the floor, panting; his fur was clean again, no traces of chocolate in any of his openings either, which made him feel extremely relieved at first… But only until he saw the dragon standing in front of him, with a firm expression on his face.\n\n\n“Well, well… Looks like the first day on the job turned out a little adventurous for ya?” He asked. They were standing in the candyland backroom again, in the exact same spot where they started the previous day.\n\n\n“I’m so sorry sir…” Berkut whined, kneeling down on the grass in desperation. “I tried my best, but I fell in the river… And then things happened so fast… I swear, I didn’t mean to slack off!”\n\n\n“Well, the good news is that being on display also counts as work!” The dragon petted his employee on the head reassuringly. “Although the hourly wage is a bit lower. Today, I’ll let you try something different, as I’m sure you’re tired of chocolate; you’ll be working with gummy candy!”\n\n\n“Yay!” Berkut’s eyes lit up for a moment as he learned he wouldn’t be dealing with chocolate again- it was one of his favorite foods, but his previous shift made him wish he’d never have to taste it again. “What will I be doing exactly?”\n\n\n“You’ll be fighting the jelly creatures over in the sugar fields!” The shopkeeper explained, pointing to a bright green patch over in the distance. “They keep vandalizing our crops… But if you cut them into nice, small pieces, they can be sold as sour gummies!”\n\n\n“Understood, sir!” Berkut saluted, and immediately, a candy cane sword spawned in his paw. He looked at it with admiration, how shiny, sharp, and oddly sweet looking it was. He wielded it in the air- already felt like a natural! “I’m ready to protect the sugar fields!”\n\n\n“Very well then. Good luck, warrior!” With that, the dragon snapped his fingers, and the wolf was magically teleported to the fields in the blink of an eye. He was quite startled by the sudden change, but quickly regained himself to hold his footing; enemies could appear at any moment.\n\n\nAnd appear, they did. Big, stretchy blobs of all shapes and sizes slowly made their way towards Berkut, bouncing on the ground and grunting with a weird, creepy voice. Only when they got closer, did the wolf see that they also had mouths-  and although there weren’t any sharp teeth inside, they were still enough to keep the nervous sugar warrior on edge.\n\n\nThe first few were fairly easy to deal with; the blobs didn’t move fast, and they definitely weren’t very smart either, letting Berkut jump out of their way with ease, slicing them open with his sharp candy cane sword. It was quite satisfying to see them split so perfectly with a quiet, rubbery tear, and fall on the ground motionlessly. He’d then move on to slice them into multiple smaller pieces, before packing them into one of the many bags that were prepared for him.\n\n\nAs time went on, however, things started getting more and more difficult. The creatures didn’t get faster or smarter, but they had one trick up their sleeves; they slowly outnumbered the lone wolf. They just kept popping up on the horizon, one after the other from every direction, making Berkut spin around wildly to try to get them all. Soon, he didn’t even bother to slice the slain ones up even further, as he just focused on keeping himself from being bitten.\n\n\nThe field was vast and empty, with nowhere for him to hide, or even try to get an advantage point. The blobs slowly overwhelmed him, no matter how hard he fought, and he was undeniably getting more and more tired. And then it happened.\n\n\nIt was only a nibble in his left arm, Berkut barely felt it, but what happened afterwards was very noticeable; the wolf had completely lost control of that limb, and it just kept flopping about like he had no bones or muscles inside to control it. Scared and slipping into a panic, he fought harder and harder to keep the monsters at bay, but seemingly the harder he tried, the more difficult it got.\n\n\nOne nibble was followed by the other in the same arm, which didn’t change much by feel… But when Berkut looked down, he saw with horror that his arm had turned into a long gummy worm like appendage, gray and red in color, just flopping about as if part of him had simply transformed into gummy candy.\n\n\nThis distraction didn’t make his job easier one bit. He tried to keep his attention away from the lost limb, but all that became impossible when another bite finally got his other arm- the one he was holding the sword in. His arm turned limp and rubbery again, and after a second bite, transformed into candy just like the first. He was left without any way to fight.\n\n\nDisarmed and horrified, Berkut decided to flee the scene before it was too late. He dropped his sword and took to running, his long gummy arms flailing behind him uncomfortably as he sprinted, but to his dismay, he had been completely surrounded, and could only run into a wall of blob creatures that kept trying to bite him. Another bite to his right leg- now that was made of candy too. He kept hopping forward on his remaining one, but that couldn’t last for long either; before long, the wolf fell on the ground, transformed entirely into one big, juicy gummy candy, shaped and colored exactly like the wolf he was before being transformed.\n\n\nOf course, Berkut didn’t just stay there on the floor for the rest of his shift, being useless. Just like when he was encased in chocolate, he was picked up again, and carried to the front of the shop to be seen by all who visited- this time, in one of the scooping bins that held different gummies of all shapes and sizes. He was there the whole day, feeling as people opened the tub and took big scoops out of it, wondering if he’d be chosen to be eaten. \n—\n\n\nThanks to magic- or maybe just sheer luck- however, he went the whole shift without being bought, and after the shop closed, he was standing in front of the dragon once again, waiting for further instructions.\n\n\n“Well! Wasn’t that interesting~?” The dragon looked at his employee, who was still shaking a little bit from having just been transformed back from flexible, shaky jelly to a flesh and bone wolf. “You managed to make us quite a bit of gummy candy, that’s nice! Although we had to send in a replacement…”\n\n\n“Yes sir! I tried my best!” Berkut nodded, glancing over at the field he had worked on the previous day, seeing the hundreds of bags of jelly that he’d harvested. “What is my task for today?”\n\n\n“Eager to work, that’s nice to see~” The shopkeeper smiled, floating closer to the wolf. “I see you’re pretty sweaty and hot today… So why not go and cool down in the ice mines? That’s where our ice cream is made!”\n\n\n“T-the ice mines?” Berkut asked with a slight bit of doubt, but before he could think about it too much, he was already teleported to a freezing cold area, surrounded by snow, ice and mountains wherever his eyes could see.\n\n\n“Here, the snow is made out of vanilla ice cream!” The dragon’s familiar voice explained from behind, but when Berkut turned to look at him, there was no one there. “Your job is to shovel as much of it as you can onto that dump truck over there!”\n\n\nStanding not too far from him was indeed a small truck, made of gingerbread and candies. The engine was running, although Berkut couldn’t see inside to see who was driving it. The back of the storage compartment was open, making it pretty clear what his task was. A shovel appeared in his hand; it was time to get to work.\n\n\nShoveling snow- or vanilla ice cream or whatever it was- proved to be the most difficult and tedious task yet. Berkut started by shoveling whatever snow was around the truck into it, but after a while, he had to carry it from further and further away, as his shovel started hitting the ground. At first, he had no problem lifting and carrying, but his muscles, already aching from working so much the previous two days, were slowly starting to give up, and work only got harder and harder. He was glad to be paid by the hour and not by the ton… But he couldn’t take too many rests, or it would be considered slacking off.\n\n\nMore than his fatigue, however, the wolf was inconvenienced by the extreme cold temperatures in the “mine”. His thick, winter fur coat should have been enough to insulate him while the constant moving kept him warm, but after just a few minutes of working, snow suddenly started falling from the sky. The cold, sugary ice cream quickly seeped into his fur and made it sticky, and bit by bit, made him less and less able to protect himself from the extreme temperatures.\n\n\nBefore long, poor Berkut was covered head to toe in ice cream. At first, it dripped off his body, but as he cooled, soon the dripping dessert began freezing to him. His fur, so majestic and fluffy when he began work, was now cracking with every movement, completely ruined by the sugar and the frozen water. He wanted to just lie down and give up, but that damned truck just didn’t want to fill up… He had to keep moving, he had to keep working…\n\n\nAfter what felt like an eternity, Berkut finally felt that he wasn’t strong enough to work anymore. He just had to sit down for a while, just take a little break… The snow was falling even heavier than before, but he couldn’t be bothered anymore. He just found the nearest candy rock to sit on, and breathed heavily as the ice cream snow slowly collected on top of him, and covered him whole.\n\n\nAt that point, there was nothing else he could do; his muscles just didn’t want to move anymore, and his body felt as though it had started to melt in the most literal sense. He felt cold- the coldest he’d felt in his entire life- yet he wasn’t shaking anymore. Sitting on that rock, not even halfway done with his work, he slowly transformed into a living vanilla ice cream statue.\n\n\nAnd like all beautiful ice cream statues, he had to be transported to the ice cream counter! There he stood for the rest of his shift with a big red cherry on the top of his head, to be admired by the guests among the other statues- many of which were also so realistic, that one could only wonder if they were fellow unfortunate mine workers as well. Every once in a while, the scoop took a little bit out of him to serve to a customer, but never enough to make him fall over or collapse, while his body magically regenerated itself. Berkut was frozen cold and yearned to cuddle next to a hot furnace more than he ever had, but at least he could be thankful that he didn’t have to be shovelling anymore. Being a living ice cream statue was a lot easier of a job…\n\n\n—\n\n\n“Oh… Oh gosh, finally!” Berkut lay down in the fresh grass at the start of his new workday, soaking in the warm rays of the morning sunshine. “I thought I was going to freeze to death in there… Or at least catch a… sneeze… Cold! There it is…”\n\n\n“Working is pretty tough, huh?” The shopkeeper dragon smiled patiently as he let his employee regenerate a little bit in the sun. “Well, you know… There is also the option of not trying to steal from my business! But I’ll be nice to you today and send you somewhere warm.”\n\n\n“Please do…” The wolf sighed, getting up from the ground when he felt that his fur had dried in the sun. “Anywhere but the ice cream mines.”\n\n\n“You really don’t have too much time left… Just keep working like you did, and you’ll be done in no time!” The dragon petted the fuzzy wolf on the head and looked at him reassuringly, with a sense of thinly veiled empathy. “Come, let’s visit the cookie factory!”\n\n\nThe gingerbread chimneys of the factory were already in sight, so they didn’t teleport. Instead, the dragon let Berkut hold onto his tail, and flew him to the factories, the two just gliding through the front door. The building was a pretty impressive one: everything was made out of delicious looking decorated gingerbread cookies, including the many interesting, moving machines and gizmos that put the products- the cookies for sale- together in the first place.\n\n\n“Wow!” Berkut, at first, found it difficult to even think of what to say. He was impressed by all the machinery and engineering around him, and enchanted by the delicious, sweet smell- albeit he was already feeling sick from all the sugar he’d consumed in the last couple of days. “Everything is so… Automated here! What am I even gonna do?”\n\n\n“The good news is, you yourself won’t have to do anything! I’m giving you a break!” The shopkeeper smiled, watching Berkut’s confused reaction before continuing. “But of course, that doesn’t mean you’ll be useless. In a moment, you’ll go through the cookie making process as if you were made of dough, and you’ll become a massive decorated cookie to serve as a decoration- or eye-candy, I should say- for the customers in the store!”\n\n\n“O-okay…” Berkut nodded, looking around as he thought about what each of the machines would feel like to go through. But the more he thought, the less confident he got; some of those contraptions looked straight up deadly for a flesh and blood wolf guy to go through. “B-but how will I even…”\n\n\n“Well how about we turn you into a sugary sludge first!” The dragon pointed one of his long clawed fingers at our protagonist and cast a magic spell, causing both of them to levitate. He slowly carried the floating, kicking Berkut over to a big hopper that dispensed sludge onto a conveyor belt below, which supplied it to the rest of the factory. This was apparently the starting point of cookie production.\n\n\nWith that, the wolf suddenly started feeling… Weird. Slimy at first, then more elastic, as his body slowly began to melt and deform, turning into gray and red colored sludge as he started to lose his shape. He slowly melted and dripped into the hopper and travelled downwards to the exit of the hopper, where he’d be dispensed along with the rest of the- non sentient- dough. “And the machines will take care of the rest! See you tomorrow!”\n\n\n“What’s happening to me again…” The wolf thought to himself, unable to speak as his mouth had ceased to exist. He didn’t feel any pain, of course, but the sensations he felt were certainly weird… He’d never been turned into living cookie dough before, after all. With his original sensory organs gone, he’d lost his sense of sight, smell, hearing and taste, but he could somehow still feel everything happening to him in real time. That was probably a side effect of the magic, or maybe just the fact that he was still alive, after all.\n\n\nFirst, the sludge had to be kneaded, as there were still plenty of air bubbles inside. The first thing Berkut felt after several minutes on the conveyor belt was a large amount of pressure that completely spread him apart, before gigantic, heavy rolling pins began to roll up and down his gooey body, making him even flatter. With each roll, Berkut could feel his thickness decreasing, and by the end, he was pretty much flatter than a pancake. Only then did he move on to the next machine, which ended up feeling even stranger.\n\n\nAfter being rolled out, a massive heavy frame was pressed on Berkut’s flat body. Although he couldn’t see it exactly, he could feel that the frame was roughly the shape of an anthropomorphic wolf, complete with a head, four limbs and a tail. The large cookie cutter stencil was pressed hard into the sentient dough, and when it lifted and the excess was removed, a big, blank wolf cookie was left on the belt, traveling on towards its next destination.\n\n\nThe following stop was Berkut’s perfect opportunity to regenerate after his chilly day at work the previous shift: the several hundred degrees hot oven with a burning fire inside! Even just approaching the oven, he could feel that things were getting a lot warmer… At first, it felt great- especially after what he’d gone through- but it just got hotter and hotter and hotter… Until it felt like he was literally being licked by red hot flames, and when the door was closed, there was absolutely no way for fresh air inside anymore. The temperature was increasing rapidly.\n\n\n“Gosh… Oh gosh… It’s so hot in here…” Berkut thought to himself as he was slowly being cooked; the heat was almost unbearable, and there was no way for his body to cool itself without the ability to sweat. He stayed there for several minutes, expanding as his raw dough cooked, until he was finally ready, and transported out of the baking area.\n\n\nAfter a brief period where he was allowed to cool a little bit- which felt like a heavenly relief- the half done Wolf cookie had finally arrived at its final stop before becoming a finished product: the decorating station! His body never lost its gray and red color scheme, but the cool, colored sugary paste that was being squeezed on his body drew out his details perfectly- exactly where everything used to be from his gray belly, red paws and cheeks, and even his black hair.\n\n\nTo finish, the machine also drew him a pair of eyes, ears and a big dot for a nose, finally giving him back his senses. Berkut was finally ready: A big, beautiful cookie ready to be displayed in the store next to all the other, non-sentient cookies.\n\n\nAfter being allowed to properly cool down, he was indeed placed into a big truck, stuffed with pillows to make sure his brittle body didn’t break or get injured at all- and was brought into the store, where the careful hand of the dragon picked him up and put him where he belonged. For the rest of the day, the wolf’s only job remained to stay there, being pretty for all the hungry customers to look at.\n\n\n—\n\n\n“Well, Berkut, it seems like your final workday has arrived!” His boss greeted the exhausted wolf at the start of his fifth shift, looking even more ceremonial than before- even though he always held an aura of festivity. His employee stood in front of him, already stumbling from exhaustion as he waited for (hopefully) his final instructions.\n\n\n“I-is it about to be finally over?” He asked with a hopeful anticipation, having already lost count of the hours he’d pulled through working. Even though he still preferred this over being reported to the police, he couldn’t help but feel like he would’ve had an easier time in jail.\n\n\n“It is indeed… Given you keep doing your work, that is!” The shopkeeper smiled, inching a bit closer to his employee. “But bully for you! For your last day’s task, you’ll barely have to do anything besides looking fabulous for our guests! I’ve noticed you excelled in your tasks of being on display, whether you were made of chocolate, ice cream, gummies or gingerbread. So today, I’ll turn you into an extravagant wolf cake, and put you on display in the central podium, right in the middle of the window and well visible for everyone who enters!”\n\n\n“O-oh…” Berkut really wasn’t sure how to react. Although he didn’t fully want to admit it, being looked at, admired, wanted… It all made him feel pretty special, and being on display all those other days were truly his favorite moments of working- and not just because he didn’t have to do any hard physical labor in the meantime. He was admittedly a little shy, especially to be put in a spot like that, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to refuse such a deal. There was only one doubt in his mind. “B-but are you sure I’ve worked enough to make up for the loss?”\n\n\n“If we calculate with my original offer for an hourly wage, and take into account that you’ve mostly just sat around, being all pretty on the shelf… Probably not!” The dragon explained, smiling. “But because I can see that you’ve truly regretted what you’ve done, and that you’ve been trying to make up for it to the best of your abilities, I’m willing to let the rest of it slide~”\n\n\n“T-thank you!” Berkut stuttered, stepping closer to hug the dragon, who was taken aback quite a bit by the gesture; he was frozen in place for a little while, before returning the hug, wrapping his short arms around the fluffy body of his naughty guest.\n\n\n“There there… But let’s not get sentimental now! You’ve still got work to do~” He said dutifully, before reaching out his hand like he always did before casting a spell, and shooting a beam of magical energy towards the wolf.\n\n\nThe metamorphosis that followed happened slowly, gradually, but was highly fascinating to look at. While all the other transformations were quite instantaneous, this time, it happened stage by stage, turning Berkut from an anthropomorphic furry creature into the sweetest looking cake in the shop. \n\n\nIt all started when he began feeling something strange… Sticky and sugary at his fingertips. Instinctively, he lifted his paw to lick and taste it; his ears perked up instantly as he recognized the taste of his favorite cake ever: Black forest! Chocolate, cherries, cream… A combination that he could never get tired of, and really was the best representation of him as food. His paws, once rough from all the heavy labor, had turned smooth and shiny, as if coated with a hard, sugary icing. His fur seemed to stiffen in places, curling into delicate piped ridges, as if they were rosettes carefully crafted by a skilled baker’s hand.\n\n\n“Mmmh…” Berkut vocalized as he felt his insides start to twist, turn and transform, his organs turning into cake one by one. He would have tried to talk, but his tongue was already made of chocolate sponge cake, his chocolate saliva drooling from the corners of his mouth. Whenever he inhaled, he could only smell the enchantingly sweet smell of cake, further planting in his mind that he was a wolf no more; he was a dessert.\n\n\nAs his organs slowly turned to cake, his body inadvertently began to droop. His soft bones- if he even had any bones left at all by that point- were no longer able to provide support for his body, causing him to slowly lose his anthropomorphic shape and collapse into a tower of soft dough, with only a few defining features sticking out, such as his head and his whipped cream tail.\n\n\nOnce he’s collapsed to a size almost half as tall as he used to be on his feet, his torso could be felt hardening again. As everything inside had transformed and stabilized, his lower body became the solid base for the wolf cake, cylindrical in shape, and made up of layers of chocolate sponge cake and cherry-vanilla cream filling. Although his silhouette was entirely unrecognizable now, the colorful stripes of cake and cream on his body still clearly resembled his fur pattern, and his face had been kept as a smaller, protruding section of the cake, complete with chocolate eyes, cake ears, a strawberry nose, and plenty of chocolate cream to replace his hair. His limbs had mostly retracted , only leaving his enlarged paws outside of the main cake structure, which made four smaller cake-islands besides of the large cylinder, with half strawberries to represent what were once claws in their place.\n\n\nWith that, Berkut’s transformation was finally complete. There he stood, in the middle of the podium with pride, and even though he couldn’t move or even make a sound, his boss could tell that he was very, very proud of how tasty he looked. And how deserving he was of that spot there! If it wasn’t for magic, he could only have been crafted by a master baker, with how perfectly round his base was, how meticulously the vanilla cream had been squeezed and spread in a way to resemble flowing fur, and how adorable his cake face looked; obviously inanimate to the outside observer, yet so full of life… As if the cake really had a soul.\n\n\nAs the morning sun rose above the rooftops across the street, its first rays pierced the storefront glass, flooding the shop with golden light and casting a warm glow over the delicious wolf cake. One by one, the passersby noticed the extravagant dessert sitting inside, each stopping to stare- and drool- for a while… As if it had a magical magnetic power that made it simply irresistible to a hungry sweet tooth. Customers quickly started flooding in, filling the store with rumbling bellies, each wanting to take a bite of the cake. At first, Berkut was quite terrified by all those people wanting to have a taste of him; if everyone got even as much as a single bite, he would be nothing but crumbs by the end of the day! Thankfully for him though, there was a protective glass casing around his sweet, spongy body, leaving the guests only to be able to admire him with their eyes, and not their taste buds.\n\n\nBerkut spent the rest of his day getting compliments, being looked at and admired like a real celebrity. He even overheard some conversations about his picture trending on social media, and people wanting to flock in from all corners of the world to the store, which had just become an overnight sensation. It was completely full all throughout the day, and even at closing time, the dragon had to practically chase guests out of the establishment, as he couldn’t close the doors even an hour after he had officially closed. Berkut was still in his place, looking just as fresh and delicious as he was in the morning; the magic did wonders keeping him in pristine condition. He just stood there until everyone was finally gone, and the dragon could finally transform him back into a wolf when nobody was looking.\n\n\n“Wow, good job!” The dragon clapped excitedly before casting a spell to turn Berkut back into his old self, who transformed almost immediately back into his wolf form, sitting in a cramped pose under the glass cover before it was lifted and he could get out. “You’ve made a real sensation out of my store, thank you!”\n\n\n“N-no problem, really~” Berkut smiled shyly; he was indeed quite proud of himself, but he knew that it was really the magic, doing most of the heavy lifting in leading him to success.\n\n\n“Well, I have to say, you really make a good cake!” His boss smiled, petting him on the head. “And I can tell you also enjoyed working for me. So, how about I make you a deal? I can let you stay here forever! Sitting in my shop, being a living advertisement piece… And I can pay you a big chunk of the income that your publicity generates!”\n\n\n“That’s a… Flattering offer…” The wolf froze slightly at the proposition, staring at the ground with pensive eyes. When he started working at the shop, he never thought he’d be considering a full time position there, but being on display really did stroke his ego… And if the trend continued, it would have also brought him quite a bit of dough! But… What would he spend it on? There was so much more to life than just standing in a display, and watching others drool as they begged to take a bite out of his creamy butt…\n\n\n“But I have to refuse.” He continued, feeling quite sad, but ultimately satisfied with his decision. “Thank you for everything though… It was very fun to work at your shop! I really hope I made up for my initial… Naughtiness~”\n\n\n“You made up for more than I ever could have asked for, Berkut!” The dragon grinned, before reaching behind his back and manifesting a small gift box seemingly out of thin air. “And of course, you’re allowed to go on your way. But please, if you do, take this gift with you!”\n\n\nThe wolf hesitantly took the small box and carefully opened it up, still expecting some sort of trick from the slightly unpredictable dragon. But instead of yet another crazy magic spell, he found something still and delicate nestled inside; It was a miniature cake- no larger than his paw- crafted with impossible precision. The tiny figure was unmistakable: a perfect, scaled-down replica of himself in cake form, just like the one he had been transformed into. Every detail was there, down to the tiny bits of strawberry and the most precise buttercream decorations that made him look so divinely delicious.\n\n\n“Take it; that’s yours to keep.” The dragon floated back, letting Berkut walk to the door for the first time since he started working, showing that he really was done. “It’s real cake! You may feel free to eat it, or keep it to admire for as long as you want. My magic will make sure it never expires~”\n\n\nBerkut nodded, looking thankfully into the smiling dragon’s eyes. It was already late, and he was sure that his nervous friends were already looking for him everywhere. He had to rush home, but he could still hear the friendly voice of his former boss from the door: “Oh, and please come and visit us again sometime!”"
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  "writing": "“A new sweets shop?? How curious!” Berkut thought to himself as he spotted a brand new building on his usual morning stroll. He went this way semi-regularly, the last time he visited must have been around… A week ago? Yet he didn’t remember any sort of construction or renovation work happening around this area.\n\n\nThe house was quite a tiny one, nestled tightly between two other residential buildings that had been there forever, but looked a lot more cheerful and bright in comparison. While most of the buildings in the area were quite dated, dark and without much personality, the small building popped out with its white walls, sparkly red roof and small statues of sweets and candy plastered all over it. There was a small chimney coming out the top letting out pink, cake-scented smoke, and the two big windows at the front gave a great view of the wonderfully photogenic cakes and sweets being sold inside. The whole place was downright impossible to ignore, especially for someone like Berkut, who happened to be obsessed with such sugary things.\n\n\nImmediately, a debate brewed itself up in the wolf’s fluffy head. On the one hand, he was trying to cut back on all the sugar he was eating, as he was definitely not getting thinner these days… Unlike his wallet, from which the bills just kept disappearing month after month. On the other hand, though… Well, it was a brand new sweets shop in town! The struggle was real.\n\n\nBut to anyone who really knows Berkut, his decision shouldn’t be a big surprise. After just a few seconds, he was already looking around inside, gulping his drool every couple of seconds upon seeing the most delicious-looking treats he’d ever laid his eyes upon. There were massive buckets full of hundreds, if not thousands of different flavors- many of which, he’d never heard of before, but was already dying to try.\n\n\nThere were a few shopping baskets at the entrance, but unlike all the candy stores he’d been in, there was a sign that also encouraged sampling before any payment occurred at all: Try whatever you want, pay at the counter later! Needless to say, Berkut quickly got to gobbling up all the different wild, interesting flavors that the shop had to offer: fairy floss, unicorn dust, magic caramel…\n\n\nIndeed, there seemed to be a very magical atmosphere inside of the shop… And not just because of all the delicious treats everywhere the eye could see. Even though he usually started feeling like he had a bit too much sugar after a dozen or so pieces of candy, this time, he felt like he could eat up the entire place and still not feel full or satiated at all. By the time he got to the cakes, he was sure he must have eaten roughly a kilogram of candy at that point… But there was absolutely no way he could have passed up on the cakes!!\n\n\nThere were plenty of forks prepared at the sampling table for any eager guest, and so Berkut was quick to jump in and start eating whatever was on the board. The pieces of cake were quite small, but very elegantly prepared- and of course, delicious. The wolf even found some of them hard to believe to be real; the cakes were made with such perfect form and decoration, that they looked like they were plastic display pieces, until Berkut sliced into them with his fork and saw that they were all, indeed, real. Perfectly spongy, wet but not soggy on the inside, delicious cream spilling out from within the layers, tasting wonderfully perfect with each bite.\n\n\nThe sweets lover felt like he was taken up to heaven with each new taste, and he simply could not stop eating. Every once in a while, some part of his mind tried telling him not to overeat- like he always did- but he simply could not listen to those warnings when the food was THIS good. The chocolate was sweet, but not too sweet. The fruit fillings tasted exactly like the fresh fruits harvested from the plants. The creams were never too heavy, never too light… And he could eat any piece of cake after any other, yet the flavors were never off. Oh, how happy he was with his decision to pay a visit! How delicious and perfect the world was…\n\n\nSuddenly, the rational part of his mind finally managed to overcome the sugar-rushed, dopamine-hungry part of his brain, as he suddenly came to a halt, and realized just how much he was going to have to pay for all that. He carefully looked at the sampling table, seeing how he’d consumed all, but a few of the cakes on there, only leaving the dirty, empty plates in his wake. The empty candy wrappers scattered all around the place… Uncountable. A feeling of dizziness and nervousness came over him, all with a heavy sense of regret. How was he going to pay for all this?\n\n\nAt first, he thought of simply dine and dashing; there was no way he could pay the bill for so many sweets, if normally he couldn’t even get himself to buy two packets of candy at once? But in the end, the honesty in him was victorious, and he decided to do the right thing, dragging himself to the counter to make his payment. There, a mysterious, yet whimsical-looking magic dragon was already waiting for him, smiling in a friendly manner.\n\n\nHe was an Eastern dragon, standing tall with a long, snake-like body and a tail that extended far beyond his legs and swept the floor with its cotton candy-like tuft at the end. His color scheme was reminiscent of Christmas candy cane: The large scales that covered his body were alternatingly red and white in color, with thin stranded, pinkish-white hair on his head and below his elbows. The two horns poking out from the top of his white head looked like rainbow lollipops, and his long mustache seemed like two strands of white licorice growing out from next to his wide nose. At first sight, he could have easily been mistaken for a statue made of candy; his vibrant colors, the way he shone, and the deliciously sweet smell of his body seemed absolutely delicious, but he really did seem to be alive.\n\n\n“How was everything?” He asked Berkut, looking at all the empty plates and wrappers he’d left behind. His voice was deep, yet playful, like a circus announcer- or indeed, the enthusiastic owner of a magical candy shop. “I can see you’ve tried quite a big part of our collection… But rest assured, there’s still plenty to go if you’re in the mood to snack again sometime!”\n\n\n“Oh, oh, I could not think of sweets right now, I’m so full…” Berkut sighed, holding his belly, which had grown noticeably larger than when he first came in. “I have some bad news, though… I don’t quite remember everything I’ve had, so… How much do I owe?”\n\n\n“Oh, that’s no problem. We do all the counting and measuring using magic! The only thing you have to do is to eat! And to pay, of course…” The shopkeeper winked at the wolf, who looked at the ground shyly, still unsure whether he could pay the bill.\n\n\n“Let’s look here…” The dragon pulled out a magical paper scroll that seemed to manifest itself below the counter, listing all the different things the client consumed during his visit. “Thirty-five pieces of candy, thirty-two feet of licorice, fifty-five mini pies, twenty plates of cake, three tables of milk chocolate, two tables of dark chocolate, three big bottles of soda, and one half of a big bowl of ice cream. W-was everything okay with the ice cream?”\n\n\n“Oh y-yes, the ice cream was wonderful!” Berkut said nervously, still in shock from what he’d just heard. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more: The fact that everything was documented so thoroughly, or that he really did stuff himself with so many things in one sitting. “I just had too much sugar for one day I think, that’s all…”\n\n\n“That is understandable, especially if you’re not used to eating such quantities all at once!” The dragon smiled, putting the cartoonishly long scroll on the table, which displayed every single piece of sweet that the wolf consumed by name. “Anyway, here is your total at the bottom. 562 dollars and 25 cents! Is that cash or card, sir?”\n\n\nBerkut looked at the bill with wide eyes, only now realizing just how much he’d gone outside of his spending budget. That amount of money was more than he could put away in an entire year, let alone to just spend during one snacking session at a fancy pantsy magic sweets store he just happened to stumble into! He was usually a very honest and upstanding citizen, but this time, he decided that dashing was his only option. He gulped, looking at the shopkeeper nervously, before turning around and running for the exit.\n\n\nA strange, chilling feeling ran down the wolf’s spine as he raced towards the door. Something was wrong; the dragon didn’t even shout after him, or try to run and stop him from exiting, even though he owed a massive bill. He was too scared to let himself be bothered by that however, so he jumped at the door without thinking, ready to bolt and never be seen again.\n\n\nBONK\n\n\nHe should have known… Berkut fell right on his butt on the floor, seeing stars around his head after bumping it pretty hard on the glass. He was disoriented for a second, but his will to escape didn’t go away; after recollecting himself a little bit, he stood up and continued pushing and pulling, pawing and kicking on the door in an attempt to pry it open and win his freedom.\n\n\n“Oh, Berkut…” The shopkeeper dragon giggled to himself as he emerged from behind the counter and walked up behind the desperate, panicking wolf. “Didn’t you expect a magical creature, such as I, to be able to lock a shop’s doors to prevent sticky-handed thieves from getting out?”\n\n\nBerkut didn’t reply, only whined desperately as he finally gave up on trying to force the door open. If it really was being held shut by magic, he truly stood no choice… He had no other option, and although he couldn’t look at the dragon out of shame and embarrassment, he kept listening to what he had to say.\n\n\n“Worry not, though!” The dragon put his clawed hand on the shoulder of his naughty customer. “You are not in trouble. This is thanks to one of our store policies, which I’m sure you haven’t bothered to read: Customers who find themselves unable to pay may pay for their consumption in voluntary labor! At a rate of $4 an hour, you can work towards paying for everything you’ve eaten~”\n\n\nThe wolf looked at the shopkeeper, blinking as he tried to process all the information and calculate just how long he’d have to be there to pay for everything. Four bucks really wasn’t a lot- far below the minimum wage in his area- but he definitely did prefer it over getting charges and possibly ending up in jail… He nodded reluctantly, waiting for the dragon to explain things further.\n\n\n“Come with me~” The dragon held out his hand, which the wolf slowly accepted, and let himself be led to the back of the store, where a small door was built. Even Berkut had to lean forward to fit inside- let alone his companion, who stood several heads taller than him- and his bloated, sugar-filled belly also needed a bit of force to fit through.\n\n\nWhen he finally was through to the other side, the wolf could simply not believe his eyes. He was transported into a vast candyland, reaching far and wide where the eye could see- there was absolutely no way this all could have fit into that tiny building in this quaint little residential area, but there it was, all in front of him with the power of magic. Cotton candy clouds, chocolate rivers, lollipop flowers and tiny critters crawling about made of gummy candy. Berkut felt like he was transported into a sugar-powered fever dream, but the smells, sounds, even the sweet flavored air in his mouth all confirmed that it was real. He wanted to say something, but he was completely lost for words.\n\n\n“Welcome behind the scenes! This is where all the deliciousness is produced!” The dragon explained after letting his guest admire the view for a minute or two. “Those gingerbread houses over there are where the sweets are made, baked and assembled, and the raw materials are collected from the rest of the world by my employees- including you, my friend!”\n\n\n“Wow…” Berkut finally managed to produce some sound, as he crouched down to pick a blade of grass from the ground and eat it. Lemon flavored…\n\n\n“Do keep in mind that anything you eat WILL be added to your bill!” The shopkeeper warned, before continuing his explanation. “Your task for today will be an easy one. You’ll collect chocolate from the rivers and bring it to the factories, one bucket at a time! Be careful not to fall in, though… I’ve heard it’s awfully difficult to get out!”\n\n\n“Understood, sir!” Berkut nodded, and as soon as he did, two candy-cane colored buckets popped into his hands out of nowhere. The shore of the nearest river was not far from where they stood, so he stumbled on over and filled them both with the delicious-smelling liquid. They were quite heavy, but manageable… Definitely better than getting a criminal record!\n\n\n“There we go, you’re a natural!” The dragon clapped, before taking flight, levitating in front of his newest employee. “Just carry ‘em to the factory and dump ‘em down into one of those big tubs of chocolate there. Do that until I come back to check on how you’re doing! Have a sweet day~”\n\n\n“Thank you, sir!” The wolf replied, already panting from the weight of his chocolate buckets as he turned around and headed towards the gingerbread houses. He was still slightly in disbelief about everything happening around him; it all went down so fast, from sitting at the tables eating cake, to carrying buckets of chocolate in a secret candyland hidden in the back of the sweets shop… He was still half-expecting to wake up and find out it was all just a dream.\n\n\nDespite the views being quite nice and him coming across new and interesting stuff from time to time, Berkut’s day still went quite slow and cumbersome. Carrying buckets was far from his dream job, and not being able to eat any of the deliciousness that surrounded him was just another layer of torture for him. Although he had eaten enough calories for the next two weeks during his gluttonous visit to the store that morning, his belly was already rumbling from time to time, especially when he laid eyes on any particularly delicious-looking pieces of food, or the scent of the chocolate river hit him just right.\n\n\nAfter a while, it was obvious that his sugar rush was wearing out, and quickly turning into a sugar crash. Berkut found it harder and harder to focus, to carry big weights, and eventually, to balance. He stumbled over to the milk chocolate river to get yet another two buckets full of chocolate, but when he leaned over the stream, he must have somehow slipped. He saw the chocolate coming towards him for a split second, and the very next moment, he was already submerged in the thick, sugary liquid that carried him downstream. The wolf panicked; He wasn’t a great swimmer to begin with… Let alone on a full stomach… Let alone so tired… Let alone in a thick, sticky substance that kept getting all into his beautiful fur, dragging him down no matter how hard he fought against it.\n\n\n“HELP!” He managed to yell out before the stream swallowed him whole, dragging him down below and carrying him further down. He had no idea where he was, or where he would end up at the end… He just wanted out, he wanted to be on dry land. In a few moments, there was no part of his body left that was not covered in chocolate. His eyes were sealed shut, his mouth and nose filled, and his once sparkly clean, fluffy fur drenched like a wet rag in that sticky, thick goo. There was no way this could end well for him- he thought as he desperately waited for someone to help him out of this sticky situation.\n\n\nLuckily for him, the watchful eyes of the shopkeeper dragon didn’t let him drown. After having lost all his power to fight against the current, Berkut finally felt something lift him out and wipe away the chocolate from his nose, allowing him to breathe. He tried to move, to clean his face from the goo, shake it out of his fur, or simply just to thank his savior… But the chocolate seemed to rapidly harden around him, freezing him in the same silly ragdoll position as he was when he was lifted out.\n\n\nBecause his ears were entirely filled with chocolate, he couldn’t really hear or make out what was happening around him. All he could feel was that he was placed upright on his feet… And simply left there, wherever he was. Still encased in chocolate that stuck tightly to him and kept all of his features visible from the outside, from his drenched fur, to the panicked expression on his face. Although he didn’t know it himself, he had become a chocolate statue on display at the store, visible from the window for every passerby to see and laugh at. This wasn’t the kind of first day he imagined for himself on the job…\n\n\n—\n\n\nOnce every last customer had left the store for the day, and the door closed with the familiar jingle of the bell on top of it, Berkut felt himself be lifted from his spot in the window. It was the dragon picking him up, he could feel it… But where was he being taken?\n\n\nAll of a sudden, his chocolate cover was broken, shattered into hundreds of little pieces that all flew away from the wolf. He fell on the floor, panting; his fur was clean again, no traces of chocolate in any of his openings either, which made him feel extremely relieved at first… But only until he saw the dragon standing in front of him, with a firm expression on his face.\n\n\n“Well, well… Looks like the first day on the job turned out a little adventurous for ya?” He asked. They were standing in the candyland backroom again, in the exact same spot where they started the previous day.\n\n\n“I’m so sorry sir…” Berkut whined, kneeling down on the grass in desperation. “I tried my best, but I fell in the river… And then things happened so fast… I swear, I didn’t mean to slack off!”\n\n\n“Well, the good news is that being on display also counts as work!” The dragon petted his employee on the head reassuringly. “Although the hourly wage is a bit lower. Today, I’ll let you try something different, as I’m sure you’re tired of chocolate; you’ll be working with gummy candy!”\n\n\n“Yay!” Berkut’s eyes lit up for a moment as he learned he wouldn’t be dealing with chocolate again- it was one of his favorite foods, but his previous shift made him wish he’d never have to taste it again. “What will I be doing exactly?”\n\n\n“You’ll be fighting the jelly creatures over in the sugar fields!” The shopkeeper explained, pointing to a bright green patch over in the distance. “They keep vandalizing our crops… But if you cut them into nice, small pieces, they can be sold as sour gummies!”\n\n\n“Understood, sir!” Berkut saluted, and immediately, a candy cane sword spawned in his paw. He looked at it with admiration, how shiny, sharp, and oddly sweet looking it was. He wielded it in the air- already felt like a natural! “I’m ready to protect the sugar fields!”\n\n\n“Very well then. Good luck, warrior!” With that, the dragon snapped his fingers, and the wolf was magically teleported to the fields in the blink of an eye. He was quite startled by the sudden change, but quickly regained himself to hold his footing; enemies could appear at any moment.\n\n\nAnd appear, they did. Big, stretchy blobs of all shapes and sizes slowly made their way towards Berkut, bouncing on the ground and grunting with a weird, creepy voice. Only when they got closer, did the wolf see that they also had mouths-  and although there weren’t any sharp teeth inside, they were still enough to keep the nervous sugar warrior on edge.\n\n\nThe first few were fairly easy to deal with; the blobs didn’t move fast, and they definitely weren’t very smart either, letting Berkut jump out of their way with ease, slicing them open with his sharp candy cane sword. It was quite satisfying to see them split so perfectly with a quiet, rubbery tear, and fall on the ground motionlessly. He’d then move on to slice them into multiple smaller pieces, before packing them into one of the many bags that were prepared for him.\n\n\nAs time went on, however, things started getting more and more difficult. The creatures didn’t get faster or smarter, but they had one trick up their sleeves; they slowly outnumbered the lone wolf. They just kept popping up on the horizon, one after the other from every direction, making Berkut spin around wildly to try to get them all. Soon, he didn’t even bother to slice the slain ones up even further, as he just focused on keeping himself from being bitten.\n\n\nThe field was vast and empty, with nowhere for him to hide, or even try to get an advantage point. The blobs slowly overwhelmed him, no matter how hard he fought, and he was undeniably getting more and more tired. And then it happened.\n\n\nIt was only a nibble in his left arm, Berkut barely felt it, but what happened afterwards was very noticeable; the wolf had completely lost control of that limb, and it just kept flopping about like he had no bones or muscles inside to control it. Scared and slipping into a panic, he fought harder and harder to keep the monsters at bay, but seemingly the harder he tried, the more difficult it got.\n\n\nOne nibble was followed by the other in the same arm, which didn’t change much by feel… But when Berkut looked down, he saw with horror that his arm had turned into a long gummy worm like appendage, gray and red in color, just flopping about as if part of him had simply transformed into gummy candy.\n\n\nThis distraction didn’t make his job easier one bit. He tried to keep his attention away from the lost limb, but all that became impossible when another bite finally got his other arm- the one he was holding the sword in. His arm turned limp and rubbery again, and after a second bite, transformed into candy just like the first. He was left without any way to fight.\n\n\nDisarmed and horrified, Berkut decided to flee the scene before it was too late. He dropped his sword and took to running, his long gummy arms flailing behind him uncomfortably as he sprinted, but to his dismay, he had been completely surrounded, and could only run into a wall of blob creatures that kept trying to bite him. Another bite to his right leg- now that was made of candy too. He kept hopping forward on his remaining one, but that couldn’t last for long either; before long, the wolf fell on the ground, transformed entirely into one big, juicy gummy candy, shaped and colored exactly like the wolf he was before being transformed.\n\n\nOf course, Berkut didn’t just stay there on the floor for the rest of his shift, being useless. Just like when he was encased in chocolate, he was picked up again, and carried to the front of the shop to be seen by all who visited- this time, in one of the scooping bins that held different gummies of all shapes and sizes. He was there the whole day, feeling as people opened the tub and took big scoops out of it, wondering if he’d be chosen to be eaten. \n—\n\n\nThanks to magic- or maybe just sheer luck- however, he went the whole shift without being bought, and after the shop closed, he was standing in front of the dragon once again, waiting for further instructions.\n\n\n“Well! Wasn’t that interesting~?” The dragon looked at his employee, who was still shaking a little bit from having just been transformed back from flexible, shaky jelly to a flesh and bone wolf. “You managed to make us quite a bit of gummy candy, that’s nice! Although we had to send in a replacement…”\n\n\n“Yes sir! I tried my best!” Berkut nodded, glancing over at the field he had worked on the previous day, seeing the hundreds of bags of jelly that he’d harvested. “What is my task for today?”\n\n\n“Eager to work, that’s nice to see~” The shopkeeper smiled, floating closer to the wolf. “I see you’re pretty sweaty and hot today… So why not go and cool down in the ice mines? That’s where our ice cream is made!”\n\n\n“T-the ice mines?” Berkut asked with a slight bit of doubt, but before he could think about it too much, he was already teleported to a freezing cold area, surrounded by snow, ice and mountains wherever his eyes could see.\n\n\n“Here, the snow is made out of vanilla ice cream!” The dragon’s familiar voice explained from behind, but when Berkut turned to look at him, there was no one there. “Your job is to shovel as much of it as you can onto that dump truck over there!”\n\n\nStanding not too far from him was indeed a small truck, made of gingerbread and candies. The engine was running, although Berkut couldn’t see inside to see who was driving it. The back of the storage compartment was open, making it pretty clear what his task was. A shovel appeared in his hand; it was time to get to work.\n\n\nShoveling snow- or vanilla ice cream or whatever it was- proved to be the most difficult and tedious task yet. Berkut started by shoveling whatever snow was around the truck into it, but after a while, he had to carry it from further and further away, as his shovel started hitting the ground. At first, he had no problem lifting and carrying, but his muscles, already aching from working so much the previous two days, were slowly starting to give up, and work only got harder and harder. He was glad to be paid by the hour and not by the ton… But he couldn’t take too many rests, or it would be considered slacking off.\n\n\nMore than his fatigue, however, the wolf was inconvenienced by the extreme cold temperatures in the “mine”. His thick, winter fur coat should have been enough to insulate him while the constant moving kept him warm, but after just a few minutes of working, snow suddenly started falling from the sky. The cold, sugary ice cream quickly seeped into his fur and made it sticky, and bit by bit, made him less and less able to protect himself from the extreme temperatures.\n\n\nBefore long, poor Berkut was covered head to toe in ice cream. At first, it dripped off his body, but as he cooled, soon the dripping dessert began freezing to him. His fur, so majestic and fluffy when he began work, was now cracking with every movement, completely ruined by the sugar and the frozen water. He wanted to just lie down and give up, but that damned truck just didn’t want to fill up… He had to keep moving, he had to keep working…\n\n\nAfter what felt like an eternity, Berkut finally felt that he wasn’t strong enough to work anymore. He just had to sit down for a while, just take a little break… The snow was falling even heavier than before, but he couldn’t be bothered anymore. He just found the nearest candy rock to sit on, and breathed heavily as the ice cream snow slowly collected on top of him, and covered him whole.\n\n\nAt that point, there was nothing else he could do; his muscles just didn’t want to move anymore, and his body felt as though it had started to melt in the most literal sense. He felt cold- the coldest he’d felt in his entire life- yet he wasn’t shaking anymore. Sitting on that rock, not even halfway done with his work, he slowly transformed into a living vanilla ice cream statue.\n\n\nAnd like all beautiful ice cream statues, he had to be transported to the ice cream counter! There he stood for the rest of his shift with a big red cherry on the top of his head, to be admired by the guests among the other statues- many of which were also so realistic, that one could only wonder if they were fellow unfortunate mine workers as well. Every once in a while, the scoop took a little bit out of him to serve to a customer, but never enough to make him fall over or collapse, while his body magically regenerated itself. Berkut was frozen cold and yearned to cuddle next to a hot furnace more than he ever had, but at least he could be thankful that he didn’t have to be shovelling anymore. Being a living ice cream statue was a lot easier of a job…\n\n\n—\n\n\n“Oh… Oh gosh, finally!” Berkut lay down in the fresh grass at the start of his new workday, soaking in the warm rays of the morning sunshine. “I thought I was going to freeze to death in there… Or at least catch a… sneeze… Cold! There it is…”\n\n\n“Working is pretty tough, huh?” The shopkeeper dragon smiled patiently as he let his employee regenerate a little bit in the sun. “Well, you know… There is also the option of not trying to steal from my business! But I’ll be nice to you today and send you somewhere warm.”\n\n\n“Please do…” The wolf sighed, getting up from the ground when he felt that his fur had dried in the sun. “Anywhere but the ice cream mines.”\n\n\n“You really don’t have too much time left… Just keep working like you did, and you’ll be done in no time!” The dragon petted the fuzzy wolf on the head and looked at him reassuringly, with a sense of thinly veiled empathy. “Come, let’s visit the cookie factory!”\n\n\nThe gingerbread chimneys of the factory were already in sight, so they didn’t teleport. Instead, the dragon let Berkut hold onto his tail, and flew him to the factories, the two just gliding through the front door. The building was a pretty impressive one: everything was made out of delicious looking decorated gingerbread cookies, including the many interesting, moving machines and gizmos that put the products- the cookies for sale- together in the first place.\n\n\n“Wow!” Berkut, at first, found it difficult to even think of what to say. He was impressed by all the machinery and engineering around him, and enchanted by the delicious, sweet smell- albeit he was already feeling sick from all the sugar he’d consumed in the last couple of days. “Everything is so… Automated here! What am I even gonna do?”\n\n\n“The good news is, you yourself won’t have to do anything! I’m giving you a break!” The shopkeeper smiled, watching Berkut’s confused reaction before continuing. “But of course, that doesn’t mean you’ll be useless. In a moment, you’ll go through the cookie making process as if you were made of dough, and you’ll become a massive decorated cookie to serve as a decoration- or eye-candy, I should say- for the customers in the store!”\n\n\n“O-okay…” Berkut nodded, looking around as he thought about what each of the machines would feel like to go through. But the more he thought, the less confident he got; some of those contraptions looked straight up deadly for a flesh and blood wolf guy to go through. “B-but how will I even…”\n\n\n“Well how about we turn you into a sugary sludge first!” The dragon pointed one of his long clawed fingers at our protagonist and cast a magic spell, causing both of them to levitate. He slowly carried the floating, kicking Berkut over to a big hopper that dispensed sludge onto a conveyor belt below, which supplied it to the rest of the factory. This was apparently the starting point of cookie production.\n\n\nWith that, the wolf suddenly started feeling… Weird. Slimy at first, then more elastic, as his body slowly began to melt and deform, turning into gray and red colored sludge as he started to lose his shape. He slowly melted and dripped into the hopper and travelled downwards to the exit of the hopper, where he’d be dispensed along with the rest of the- non sentient- dough. “And the machines will take care of the rest! See you tomorrow!”\n\n\n“What’s happening to me again…” The wolf thought to himself, unable to speak as his mouth had ceased to exist. He didn’t feel any pain, of course, but the sensations he felt were certainly weird… He’d never been turned into living cookie dough before, after all. With his original sensory organs gone, he’d lost his sense of sight, smell, hearing and taste, but he could somehow still feel everything happening to him in real time. That was probably a side effect of the magic, or maybe just the fact that he was still alive, after all.\n\n\nFirst, the sludge had to be kneaded, as there were still plenty of air bubbles inside. The first thing Berkut felt after several minutes on the conveyor belt was a large amount of pressure that completely spread him apart, before gigantic, heavy rolling pins began to roll up and down his gooey body, making him even flatter. With each roll, Berkut could feel his thickness decreasing, and by the end, he was pretty much flatter than a pancake. Only then did he move on to the next machine, which ended up feeling even stranger.\n\n\nAfter being rolled out, a massive heavy frame was pressed on Berkut’s flat body. Although he couldn’t see it exactly, he could feel that the frame was roughly the shape of an anthropomorphic wolf, complete with a head, four limbs and a tail. The large cookie cutter stencil was pressed hard into the sentient dough, and when it lifted and the excess was removed, a big, blank wolf cookie was left on the belt, traveling on towards its next destination.\n\n\nThe following stop was Berkut’s perfect opportunity to regenerate after his chilly day at work the previous shift: the several hundred degrees hot oven with a burning fire inside! Even just approaching the oven, he could feel that things were getting a lot warmer… At first, it felt great- especially after what he’d gone through- but it just got hotter and hotter and hotter… Until it felt like he was literally being licked by red hot flames, and when the door was closed, there was absolutely no way for fresh air inside anymore. The temperature was increasing rapidly.\n\n\n“Gosh… Oh gosh… It’s so hot in here…” Berkut thought to himself as he was slowly being cooked; the heat was almost unbearable, and there was no way for his body to cool itself without the ability to sweat. He stayed there for several minutes, expanding as his raw dough cooked, until he was finally ready, and transported out of the baking area.\n\n\nAfter a brief period where he was allowed to cool a little bit- which felt like a heavenly relief- the half done Wolf cookie had finally arrived at its final stop before becoming a finished product: the decorating station! His body never lost its gray and red color scheme, but the cool, colored sugary paste that was being squeezed on his body drew out his details perfectly- exactly where everything used to be from his gray belly, red paws and cheeks, and even his black hair.\n\n\nTo finish, the machine also drew him a pair of eyes, ears and a big dot for a nose, finally giving him back his senses. Berkut was finally ready: A big, beautiful cookie ready to be displayed in the store next to all the other, non-sentient cookies.\n\n\nAfter being allowed to properly cool down, he was indeed placed into a big truck, stuffed with pillows to make sure his brittle body didn’t break or get injured at all- and was brought into the store, where the careful hand of the dragon picked him up and put him where he belonged. For the rest of the day, the wolf’s only job remained to stay there, being pretty for all the hungry customers to look at.\n\n\n—\n\n\n“Well, Berkut, it seems like your final workday has arrived!” His boss greeted the exhausted wolf at the start of his fifth shift, looking even more ceremonial than before- even though he always held an aura of festivity. His employee stood in front of him, already stumbling from exhaustion as he waited for (hopefully) his final instructions.\n\n\n“I-is it about to be finally over?” He asked with a hopeful anticipation, having already lost count of the hours he’d pulled through working. Even though he still preferred this over being reported to the police, he couldn’t help but feel like he would’ve had an easier time in jail.\n\n\n“It is indeed… Given you keep doing your work, that is!” The shopkeeper smiled, inching a bit closer to his employee. “But bully for you! For your last day’s task, you’ll barely have to do anything besides looking fabulous for our guests! I’ve noticed you excelled in your tasks of being on display, whether you were made of chocolate, ice cream, gummies or gingerbread. So today, I’ll turn you into an extravagant wolf cake, and put you on display in the central podium, right in the middle of the window and well visible for everyone who enters!”\n\n\n“O-oh…” Berkut really wasn’t sure how to react. Although he didn’t fully want to admit it, being looked at, admired, wanted… It all made him feel pretty special, and being on display all those other days were truly his favorite moments of working- and not just because he didn’t have to do any hard physical labor in the meantime. He was admittedly a little shy, especially to be put in a spot like that, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to refuse such a deal. There was only one doubt in his mind. “B-but are you sure I’ve worked enough to make up for the loss?”\n\n\n“If we calculate with my original offer for an hourly wage, and take into account that you’ve mostly just sat around, being all pretty on the shelf… Probably not!” The dragon explained, smiling. “But because I can see that you’ve truly regretted what you’ve done, and that you’ve been trying to make up for it to the best of your abilities, I’m willing to let the rest of it slide~”\n\n\n“T-thank you!” Berkut stuttered, stepping closer to hug the dragon, who was taken aback quite a bit by the gesture; he was frozen in place for a little while, before returning the hug, wrapping his short arms around the fluffy body of his naughty guest.\n\n\n“There there… But let’s not get sentimental now! You’ve still got work to do~” He said dutifully, before reaching out his hand like he always did before casting a spell, and shooting a beam of magical energy towards the wolf.\n\n\nThe metamorphosis that followed happened slowly, gradually, but was highly fascinating to look at. While all the other transformations were quite instantaneous, this time, it happened stage by stage, turning Berkut from an anthropomorphic furry creature into the sweetest looking cake in the shop. \n\n\nIt all started when he began feeling something strange… Sticky and sugary at his fingertips. Instinctively, he lifted his paw to lick and taste it; his ears perked up instantly as he recognized the taste of his favorite cake ever: Black forest! Chocolate, cherries, cream… A combination that he could never get tired of, and really was the best representation of him as food. His paws, once rough from all the heavy labor, had turned smooth and shiny, as if coated with a hard, sugary icing. His fur seemed to stiffen in places, curling into delicate piped ridges, as if they were rosettes carefully crafted by a skilled baker’s hand.\n\n\n“Mmmh…” Berkut vocalized as he felt his insides start to twist, turn and transform, his organs turning into cake one by one. He would have tried to talk, but his tongue was already made of chocolate sponge cake, his chocolate saliva drooling from the corners of his mouth. Whenever he inhaled, he could only smell the enchantingly sweet smell of cake, further planting in his mind that he was a wolf no more; he was a dessert.\n\n\nAs his organs slowly turned to cake, his body inadvertently began to droop. His soft bones- if he even had any bones left at all by that point- were no longer able to provide support for his body, causing him to slowly lose his anthropomorphic shape and collapse into a tower of soft dough, with only a few defining features sticking out, such as his head and his whipped cream tail.\n\n\nOnce he’s collapsed to a size almost half as tall as he used to be on his feet, his torso could be felt hardening again. As everything inside had transformed and stabilized, his lower body became the solid base for the wolf cake, cylindrical in shape, and made up of layers of chocolate sponge cake and cherry-vanilla cream filling. Although his silhouette was entirely unrecognizable now, the colorful stripes of cake and cream on his body still clearly resembled his fur pattern, and his face had been kept as a smaller, protruding section of the cake, complete with chocolate eyes, cake ears, a strawberry nose, and plenty of chocolate cream to replace his hair. His limbs had mostly retracted , only leaving his enlarged paws outside of the main cake structure, which made four smaller cake-islands besides of the large cylinder, with half strawberries to represent what were once claws in their place.\n\n\nWith that, Berkut’s transformation was finally complete. There he stood, in the middle of the podium with pride, and even though he couldn’t move or even make a sound, his boss could tell that he was very, very proud of how tasty he looked. And how deserving he was of that spot there! If it wasn’t for magic, he could only have been crafted by a master baker, with how perfectly round his base was, how meticulously the vanilla cream had been squeezed and spread in a way to resemble flowing fur, and how adorable his cake face looked; obviously inanimate to the outside observer, yet so full of life… As if the cake really had a soul.\n\n\nAs the morning sun rose above the rooftops across the street, its first rays pierced the storefront glass, flooding the shop with golden light and casting a warm glow over the delicious wolf cake. One by one, the passersby noticed the extravagant dessert sitting inside, each stopping to stare- and drool- for a while… As if it had a magical magnetic power that made it simply irresistible to a hungry sweet tooth. Customers quickly started flooding in, filling the store with rumbling bellies, each wanting to take a bite of the cake. At first, Berkut was quite terrified by all those people wanting to have a taste of him; if everyone got even as much as a single bite, he would be nothing but crumbs by the end of the day! Thankfully for him though, there was a protective glass casing around his sweet, spongy body, leaving the guests only to be able to admire him with their eyes, and not their taste buds.\n\n\nBerkut spent the rest of his day getting compliments, being looked at and admired like a real celebrity. He even overheard some conversations about his picture trending on social media, and people wanting to flock in from all corners of the world to the store, which had just become an overnight sensation. It was completely full all throughout the day, and even at closing time, the dragon had to practically chase guests out of the establishment, as he couldn’t close the doors even an hour after he had officially closed. Berkut was still in his place, looking just as fresh and delicious as he was in the morning; the magic did wonders keeping him in pristine condition. He just stood there until everyone was finally gone, and the dragon could finally transform him back into a wolf when nobody was looking.\n\n\n“Wow, good job!” The dragon clapped excitedly before casting a spell to turn Berkut back into his old self, who transformed almost immediately back into his wolf form, sitting in a cramped pose under the glass cover before it was lifted and he could get out. “You’ve made a real sensation out of my store, thank you!”\n\n\n“N-no problem, really~” Berkut smiled shyly; he was indeed quite proud of himself, but he knew that it was really the magic, doing most of the heavy lifting in leading him to success.\n\n\n“Well, I have to say, you really make a good cake!” His boss smiled, petting him on the head. “And I can tell you also enjoyed working for me. So, how about I make you a deal? I can let you stay here forever! Sitting in my shop, being a living advertisement piece… And I can pay you a big chunk of the income that your publicity generates!”\n\n\n“That’s a… Flattering offer…” The wolf froze slightly at the proposition, staring at the ground with pensive eyes. When he started working at the shop, he never thought he’d be considering a full time position there, but being on display really did stroke his ego… And if the trend continued, it would have also brought him quite a bit of dough! But… What would he spend it on? There was so much more to life than just standing in a display, and watching others drool as they begged to take a bite out of his creamy butt…\n\n\n“But I have to refuse.” He continued, feeling quite sad, but ultimately satisfied with his decision. “Thank you for everything though… It was very fun to work at your shop! I really hope I made up for my initial… Naughtiness~”\n\n\n“You made up for more than I ever could have asked for, Berkut!” The dragon grinned, before reaching behind his back and manifesting a small gift box seemingly out of thin air. “And of course, you’re allowed to go on your way. But please, if you do, take this gift with you!”\n\n\nThe wolf hesitantly took the small box and carefully opened it up, still expecting some sort of trick from the slightly unpredictable dragon. But instead of yet another crazy magic spell, he found something still and delicate nestled inside; It was a miniature cake- no larger than his paw- crafted with impossible precision. The tiny figure was unmistakable: a perfect, scaled-down replica of himself in cake form, just like the one he had been transformed into. Every detail was there, down to the tiny bits of strawberry and the most precise buttercream decorations that made him look so divinely delicious.\n\n\n“Take it; that’s yours to keep.” The dragon floated back, letting Berkut walk to the door for the first time since he started working, showing that he really was done. “It’s real cake! You may feel free to eat it, or keep it to admire for as long as you want. My magic will make sure it never expires~”\n\n\nBerkut nodded, looking thankfully into the smiling dragon’s eyes. It was already late, and he was sure that his nervous friends were already looking for him everywhere. He had to rush home, but he could still hear the friendly voice of his former boss from the door: “Oh, and please come and visit us again sometime!”"
}

{
  "description": "Commissions open! Check out my page for more info~\nCommissioned by: @@Shadowdust"
}

{
  "writing": "“A new sweets shop?? How curious!” Berkut thought to himself as he spotted a brand new building on his usual morning stroll. He went this way semi-regularly, the last time he visited must have been around… A week ago? Yet he didn’t remember any sort of construction or renovation work happening around this area.\n\n\nThe house was quite a tiny one, nestled tightly between two other residential buildings that had been there forever, but looked a lot more cheerful and bright in comparison. While most of the buildings in the area were quite dated, dark and without much personality, the small building popped out with its white walls, sparkly red roof and small statues of sweets and candy plastered all over it. There was a small chimney coming out the top letting out pink, cake-scented smoke, and the two big windows at the front gave a great view of the wonderfully photogenic cakes and sweets being sold inside. The whole place was downright impossible to ignore, especially for someone like Berkut, who happened to be obsessed with such sugary things.\n\n\nImmediately, a debate brewed itself up in the wolf’s fluffy head. On the one hand, he was trying to cut back on all the sugar he was eating, as he was definitely not getting thinner these days… Unlike his wallet, from which the bills just kept disappearing month after month. On the other hand, though… Well, it was a brand new sweets shop in town! The struggle was real.\n\n\nBut to anyone who really knows Berkut, his decision shouldn’t be a big surprise. After just a few seconds, he was already looking around inside, gulping his drool every couple of seconds upon seeing the most delicious-looking treats he’d ever laid his eyes upon. There were massive buckets full of hundreds, if not thousands of different flavors- many of which, he’d never heard of before, but was already dying to try.\n\n\nThere were a few shopping baskets at the entrance, but unlike all the candy stores he’d been in, there was a sign that also encouraged sampling before any payment occurred at all: Try whatever you want, pay at the counter later! Needless to say, Berkut quickly got to gobbling up all the different wild, interesting flavors that the shop had to offer: fairy floss, unicorn dust, magic caramel…\n\n\nIndeed, there seemed to be a very magical atmosphere inside of the shop… And not just because of all the delicious treats everywhere the eye could see. Even though he usually started feeling like he had a bit too much sugar after a dozen or so pieces of candy, this time, he felt like he could eat up the entire place and still not feel full or satiated at all. By the time he got to the cakes, he was sure he must have eaten roughly a kilogram of candy at that point… But there was absolutely no way he could have passed up on the cakes!!\n\n\nThere were plenty of forks prepared at the sampling table for any eager guest, and so Berkut was quick to jump in and start eating whatever was on the board. The pieces of cake were quite small, but very elegantly prepared- and of course, delicious. The wolf even found some of them hard to believe to be real; the cakes were made with such perfect form and decoration, that they looked like they were plastic display pieces, until Berkut sliced into them with his fork and saw that they were all, indeed, real. Perfectly spongy, wet but not soggy on the inside, delicious cream spilling out from within the layers, tasting wonderfully perfect with each bite.\n\n\nThe sweets lover felt like he was taken up to heaven with each new taste, and he simply could not stop eating. Every once in a while, some part of his mind tried telling him not to overeat- like he always did- but he simply could not listen to those warnings when the food was THIS good. The chocolate was sweet, but not too sweet. The fruit fillings tasted exactly like the fresh fruits harvested from the plants. The creams were never too heavy, never too light… And he could eat any piece of cake after any other, yet the flavors were never off. Oh, how happy he was with his decision to pay a visit! How delicious and perfect the world was…\n\n\nSuddenly, the rational part of his mind finally managed to overcome the sugar-rushed, dopamine-hungry part of his brain, as he suddenly came to a halt, and realized just how much he was going to have to pay for all that. He carefully looked at the sampling table, seeing how he’d consumed all, but a few of the cakes on there, only leaving the dirty, empty plates in his wake. The empty candy wrappers scattered all around the place… Uncountable. A feeling of dizziness and nervousness came over him, all with a heavy sense of regret. How was he going to pay for all this?\n\n\nAt first, he thought of simply dine and dashing; there was no way he could pay the bill for so many sweets, if normally he couldn’t even get himself to buy two packets of candy at once? But in the end, the honesty in him was victorious, and he decided to do the right thing, dragging himself to the counter to make his payment. There, a mysterious, yet whimsical-looking magic dragon was already waiting for him, smiling in a friendly manner.\n\n\nHe was an Eastern dragon, standing tall with a long, snake-like body and a tail that extended far beyond his legs and swept the floor with its cotton candy-like tuft at the end. His color scheme was reminiscent of Christmas candy cane: The large scales that covered his body were alternatingly red and white in color, with thin stranded, pinkish-white hair on his head and below his elbows. The two horns poking out from the top of his white head looked like rainbow lollipops, and his long mustache seemed like two strands of white licorice growing out from next to his wide nose. At first sight, he could have easily been mistaken for a statue made of candy; his vibrant colors, the way he shone, and the deliciously sweet smell of his body seemed absolutely delicious, but he really did seem to be alive.\n\n\n“How was everything?” He asked Berkut, looking at all the empty plates and wrappers he’d left behind. His voice was deep, yet playful, like a circus announcer- or indeed, the enthusiastic owner of a magical candy shop. “I can see you’ve tried quite a big part of our collection… But rest assured, there’s still plenty to go if you’re in the mood to snack again sometime!”\n\n\n“Oh, oh, I could not think of sweets right now, I’m so full…” Berkut sighed, holding his belly, which had grown noticeably larger than when he first came in. “I have some bad news, though… I don’t quite remember everything I’ve had, so… How much do I owe?”\n\n\n“Oh, that’s no problem. We do all the counting and measuring using magic! The only thing you have to do is to eat! And to pay, of course…” The shopkeeper winked at the wolf, who looked at the ground shyly, still unsure whether he could pay the bill.\n\n\n“Let’s look here…” The dragon pulled out a magical paper scroll that seemed to manifest itself below the counter, listing all the different things the client consumed during his visit. “Thirty-five pieces of candy, thirty-two feet of licorice, fifty-five mini pies, twenty plates of cake, three tables of milk chocolate, two tables of dark chocolate, three big bottles of soda, and one half of a big bowl of ice cream. W-was everything okay with the ice cream?”\n\n\n“Oh y-yes, the ice cream was wonderful!” Berkut said nervously, still in shock from what he’d just heard. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more: The fact that everything was documented so thoroughly, or that he really did stuff himself with so many things in one sitting. “I just had too much sugar for one day I think, that’s all…”\n\n\n“That is understandable, especially if you’re not used to eating such quantities all at once!” The dragon smiled, putting the cartoonishly long scroll on the table, which displayed every single piece of sweet that the wolf consumed by name. “Anyway, here is your total at the bottom. 562 dollars and 25 cents! Is that cash or card, sir?”\n\n\nBerkut looked at the bill with wide eyes, only now realizing just how much he’d gone outside of his spending budget. That amount of money was more than he could put away in an entire year, let alone to just spend during one snacking session at a fancy pantsy magic sweets store he just happened to stumble into! He was usually a very honest and upstanding citizen, but this time, he decided that dashing was his only option. He gulped, looking at the shopkeeper nervously, before turning around and running for the exit.\n\n\nA strange, chilling feeling ran down the wolf’s spine as he raced towards the door. Something was wrong; the dragon didn’t even shout after him, or try to run and stop him from exiting, even though he owed a massive bill. He was too scared to let himself be bothered by that however, so he jumped at the door without thinking, ready to bolt and never be seen again.\n\n\nBONK\n\n\nHe should have known… Berkut fell right on his butt on the floor, seeing stars around his head after bumping it pretty hard on the glass. He was disoriented for a second, but his will to escape didn’t go away; after recollecting himself a little bit, he stood up and continued pushing and pulling, pawing and kicking on the door in an attempt to pry it open and win his freedom.\n\n\n“Oh, Berkut…” The shopkeeper dragon giggled to himself as he emerged from behind the counter and walked up behind the desperate, panicking wolf. “Didn’t you expect a magical creature, such as I, to be able to lock a shop’s doors to prevent sticky-handed thieves from getting out?”\n\n\nBerkut didn’t reply, only whined desperately as he finally gave up on trying to force the door open. If it really was being held shut by magic, he truly stood no choice… He had no other option, and although he couldn’t look at the dragon out of shame and embarrassment, he kept listening to what he had to say.\n\n\n“Worry not, though!” The dragon put his clawed hand on the shoulder of his naughty customer. “You are not in trouble. This is thanks to one of our store policies, which I’m sure you haven’t bothered to read: Customers who find themselves unable to pay may pay for their consumption in voluntary labor! At a rate of $4 an hour, you can work towards paying for everything you’ve eaten~”\n\n\nThe wolf looked at the shopkeeper, blinking as he tried to process all the information and calculate just how long he’d have to be there to pay for everything. Four bucks really wasn’t a lot- far below the minimum wage in his area- but he definitely did prefer it over getting charges and possibly ending up in jail… He nodded reluctantly, waiting for the dragon to explain things further.\n\n\n“Come with me~” The dragon held out his hand, which the wolf slowly accepted, and let himself be led to the back of the store, where a small door was built. Even Berkut had to lean forward to fit inside- let alone his companion, who stood several heads taller than him- and his bloated, sugar-filled belly also needed a bit of force to fit through.\n\n\nWhen he finally was through to the other side, the wolf could simply not believe his eyes. He was transported into a vast candyland, reaching far and wide where the eye could see- there was absolutely no way this all could have fit into that tiny building in this quaint little residential area, but there it was, all in front of him with the power of magic. Cotton candy clouds, chocolate rivers, lollipop flowers and tiny critters crawling about made of gummy candy. Berkut felt like he was transported into a sugar-powered fever dream, but the smells, sounds, even the sweet flavored air in his mouth all confirmed that it was real. He wanted to say something, but he was completely lost for words.\n\n\n“Welcome behind the scenes! This is where all the deliciousness is produced!” The dragon explained after letting his guest admire the view for a minute or two. “Those gingerbread houses over there are where the sweets are made, baked and assembled, and the raw materials are collected from the rest of the world by my employees- including you, my friend!”\n\n\n“Wow…” Berkut finally managed to produce some sound, as he crouched down to pick a blade of grass from the ground and eat it. Lemon flavored…\n\n\n“Do keep in mind that anything you eat WILL be added to your bill!” The shopkeeper warned, before continuing his explanation. “Your task for today will be an easy one. You’ll collect chocolate from the rivers and bring it to the factories, one bucket at a time! Be careful not to fall in, though… I’ve heard it’s awfully difficult to get out!”\n\n\n“Understood, sir!” Berkut nodded, and as soon as he did, two candy-cane colored buckets popped into his hands out of nowhere. The shore of the nearest river was not far from where they stood, so he stumbled on over and filled them both with the delicious-smelling liquid. They were quite heavy, but manageable… Definitely better than getting a criminal record!\n\n\n“There we go, you’re a natural!” The dragon clapped, before taking flight, levitating in front of his newest employee. “Just carry ‘em to the factory and dump ‘em down into one of those big tubs of chocolate there. Do that until I come back to check on how you’re doing! Have a sweet day~”\n\n\n“Thank you, sir!” The wolf replied, already panting from the weight of his chocolate buckets as he turned around and headed towards the gingerbread houses. He was still slightly in disbelief about everything happening around him; it all went down so fast, from sitting at the tables eating cake, to carrying buckets of chocolate in a secret candyland hidden in the back of the sweets shop… He was still half-expecting to wake up and find out it was all just a dream.\n\n\nDespite the views being quite nice and him coming across new and interesting stuff from time to time, Berkut’s day still went quite slow and cumbersome. Carrying buckets was far from his dream job, and not being able to eat any of the deliciousness that surrounded him was just another layer of torture for him. Although he had eaten enough calories for the next two weeks during his gluttonous visit to the store that morning, his belly was already rumbling from time to time, especially when he laid eyes on any particularly delicious-looking pieces of food, or the scent of the chocolate river hit him just right.\n\n\nAfter a while, it was obvious that his sugar rush was wearing out, and quickly turning into a sugar crash. Berkut found it harder and harder to focus, to carry big weights, and eventually, to balance. He stumbled over to the milk chocolate river to get yet another two buckets full of chocolate, but when he leaned over the stream, he must have somehow slipped. He saw the chocolate coming towards him for a split second, and the very next moment, he was already submerged in the thick, sugary liquid that carried him downstream. The wolf panicked; He wasn’t a great swimmer to begin with… Let alone on a full stomach… Let alone so tired… Let alone in a thick, sticky substance that kept getting all into his beautiful fur, dragging him down no matter how hard he fought against it.\n\n\n“HELP!” He managed to yell out before the stream swallowed him whole, dragging him down below and carrying him further down. He had no idea where he was, or where he would end up at the end… He just wanted out, he wanted to be on dry land. In a few moments, there was no part of his body left that was not covered in chocolate. His eyes were sealed shut, his mouth and nose filled, and his once sparkly clean, fluffy fur drenched like a wet rag in that sticky, thick goo. There was no way this could end well for him- he thought as he desperately waited for someone to help him out of this sticky situation.\n\n\nLuckily for him, the watchful eyes of the shopkeeper dragon didn’t let him drown. After having lost all his power to fight against the current, Berkut finally felt something lift him out and wipe away the chocolate from his nose, allowing him to breathe. He tried to move, to clean his face from the goo, shake it out of his fur, or simply just to thank his savior… But the chocolate seemed to rapidly harden around him, freezing him in the same silly ragdoll position as he was when he was lifted out.\n\n\nBecause his ears were entirely filled with chocolate, he couldn’t really hear or make out what was happening around him. All he could feel was that he was placed upright on his feet… And simply left there, wherever he was. Still encased in chocolate that stuck tightly to him and kept all of his features visible from the outside, from his drenched fur, to the panicked expression on his face. Although he didn’t know it himself, he had become a chocolate statue on display at the store, visible from the window for every passerby to see and laugh at. This wasn’t the kind of first day he imagined for himself on the job…\n\n\n—\n\n\nOnce every last customer had left the store for the day, and the door closed with the familiar jingle of the bell on top of it, Berkut felt himself be lifted from his spot in the window. It was the dragon picking him up, he could feel it… But where was he being taken?\n\n\nAll of a sudden, his chocolate cover was broken, shattered into hundreds of little pieces that all flew away from the wolf. He fell on the floor, panting; his fur was clean again, no traces of chocolate in any of his openings either, which made him feel extremely relieved at first… But only until he saw the dragon standing in front of him, with a firm expression on his face.\n\n\n“Well, well… Looks like the first day on the job turned out a little adventurous for ya?” He asked. They were standing in the candyland backroom again, in the exact same spot where they started the previous day.\n\n\n“I’m so sorry sir…” Berkut whined, kneeling down on the grass in desperation. “I tried my best, but I fell in the river… And then things happened so fast… I swear, I didn’t mean to slack off!”\n\n\n“Well, the good news is that being on display also counts as work!” The dragon petted his employee on the head reassuringly. “Although the hourly wage is a bit lower. Today, I’ll let you try something different, as I’m sure you’re tired of chocolate; you’ll be working with gummy candy!”\n\n\n“Yay!” Berkut’s eyes lit up for a moment as he learned he wouldn’t be dealing with chocolate again- it was one of his favorite foods, but his previous shift made him wish he’d never have to taste it again. “What will I be doing exactly?”\n\n\n“You’ll be fighting the jelly creatures over in the sugar fields!” The shopkeeper explained, pointing to a bright green patch over in the distance. “They keep vandalizing our crops… But if you cut them into nice, small pieces, they can be sold as sour gummies!”\n\n\n“Understood, sir!” Berkut saluted, and immediately, a candy cane sword spawned in his paw. He looked at it with admiration, how shiny, sharp, and oddly sweet looking it was. He wielded it in the air- already felt like a natural! “I’m ready to protect the sugar fields!”\n\n\n“Very well then. Good luck, warrior!” With that, the dragon snapped his fingers, and the wolf was magically teleported to the fields in the blink of an eye. He was quite startled by the sudden change, but quickly regained himself to hold his footing; enemies could appear at any moment.\n\n\nAnd appear, they did. Big, stretchy blobs of all shapes and sizes slowly made their way towards Berkut, bouncing on the ground and grunting with a weird, creepy voice. Only when they got closer, did the wolf see that they also had mouths-  and although there weren’t any sharp teeth inside, they were still enough to keep the nervous sugar warrior on edge.\n\n\nThe first few were fairly easy to deal with; the blobs didn’t move fast, and they definitely weren’t very smart either, letting Berkut jump out of their way with ease, slicing them open with his sharp candy cane sword. It was quite satisfying to see them split so perfectly with a quiet, rubbery tear, and fall on the ground motionlessly. He’d then move on to slice them into multiple smaller pieces, before packing them into one of the many bags that were prepared for him.\n\n\nAs time went on, however, things started getting more and more difficult. The creatures didn’t get faster or smarter, but they had one trick up their sleeves; they slowly outnumbered the lone wolf. They just kept popping up on the horizon, one after the other from every direction, making Berkut spin around wildly to try to get them all. Soon, he didn’t even bother to slice the slain ones up even further, as he just focused on keeping himself from being bitten.\n\n\nThe field was vast and empty, with nowhere for him to hide, or even try to get an advantage point. The blobs slowly overwhelmed him, no matter how hard he fought, and he was undeniably getting more and more tired. And then it happened.\n\n\nIt was only a nibble in his left arm, Berkut barely felt it, but what happened afterwards was very noticeable; the wolf had completely lost control of that limb, and it just kept flopping about like he had no bones or muscles inside to control it. Scared and slipping into a panic, he fought harder and harder to keep the monsters at bay, but seemingly the harder he tried, the more difficult it got.\n\n\nOne nibble was followed by the other in the same arm, which didn’t change much by feel… But when Berkut looked down, he saw with horror that his arm had turned into a long gummy worm like appendage, gray and red in color, just flopping about as if part of him had simply transformed into gummy candy.\n\n\nThis distraction didn’t make his job easier one bit. He tried to keep his attention away from the lost limb, but all that became impossible when another bite finally got his other arm- the one he was holding the sword in. His arm turned limp and rubbery again, and after a second bite, transformed into candy just like the first. He was left without any way to fight.\n\n\nDisarmed and horrified, Berkut decided to flee the scene before it was too late. He dropped his sword and took to running, his long gummy arms flailing behind him uncomfortably as he sprinted, but to his dismay, he had been completely surrounded, and could only run into a wall of blob creatures that kept trying to bite him. Another bite to his right leg- now that was made of candy too. He kept hopping forward on his remaining one, but that couldn’t last for long either; before long, the wolf fell on the ground, transformed entirely into one big, juicy gummy candy, shaped and colored exactly like the wolf he was before being transformed.\n\n\nOf course, Berkut didn’t just stay there on the floor for the rest of his shift, being useless. Just like when he was encased in chocolate, he was picked up again, and carried to the front of the shop to be seen by all who visited- this time, in one of the scooping bins that held different gummies of all shapes and sizes. He was there the whole day, feeling as people opened the tub and took big scoops out of it, wondering if he’d be chosen to be eaten. \n—\n\n\nThanks to magic- or maybe just sheer luck- however, he went the whole shift without being bought, and after the shop closed, he was standing in front of the dragon once again, waiting for further instructions.\n\n\n“Well! Wasn’t that interesting~?” The dragon looked at his employee, who was still shaking a little bit from having just been transformed back from flexible, shaky jelly to a flesh and bone wolf. “You managed to make us quite a bit of gummy candy, that’s nice! Although we had to send in a replacement…”\n\n\n“Yes sir! I tried my best!” Berkut nodded, glancing over at the field he had worked on the previous day, seeing the hundreds of bags of jelly that he’d harvested. “What is my task for today?”\n\n\n“Eager to work, that’s nice to see~” The shopkeeper smiled, floating closer to the wolf. “I see you’re pretty sweaty and hot today… So why not go and cool down in the ice mines? That’s where our ice cream is made!”\n\n\n“T-the ice mines?” Berkut asked with a slight bit of doubt, but before he could think about it too much, he was already teleported to a freezing cold area, surrounded by snow, ice and mountains wherever his eyes could see.\n\n\n“Here, the snow is made out of vanilla ice cream!” The dragon’s familiar voice explained from behind, but when Berkut turned to look at him, there was no one there. “Your job is to shovel as much of it as you can onto that dump truck over there!”\n\n\nStanding not too far from him was indeed a small truck, made of gingerbread and candies. The engine was running, although Berkut couldn’t see inside to see who was driving it. The back of the storage compartment was open, making it pretty clear what his task was. A shovel appeared in his hand; it was time to get to work.\n\n\nShoveling snow- or vanilla ice cream or whatever it was- proved to be the most difficult and tedious task yet. Berkut started by shoveling whatever snow was around the truck into it, but after a while, he had to carry it from further and further away, as his shovel started hitting the ground. At first, he had no problem lifting and carrying, but his muscles, already aching from working so much the previous two days, were slowly starting to give up, and work only got harder and harder. He was glad to be paid by the hour and not by the ton… But he couldn’t take too many rests, or it would be considered slacking off.\n\n\nMore than his fatigue, however, the wolf was inconvenienced by the extreme cold temperatures in the “mine”. His thick, winter fur coat should have been enough to insulate him while the constant moving kept him warm, but after just a few minutes of working, snow suddenly started falling from the sky. The cold, sugary ice cream quickly seeped into his fur and made it sticky, and bit by bit, made him less and less able to protect himself from the extreme temperatures.\n\n\nBefore long, poor Berkut was covered head to toe in ice cream. At first, it dripped off his body, but as he cooled, soon the dripping dessert began freezing to him. His fur, so majestic and fluffy when he began work, was now cracking with every movement, completely ruined by the sugar and the frozen water. He wanted to just lie down and give up, but that damned truck just didn’t want to fill up… He had to keep moving, he had to keep working…\n\n\nAfter what felt like an eternity, Berkut finally felt that he wasn’t strong enough to work anymore. He just had to sit down for a while, just take a little break… The snow was falling even heavier than before, but he couldn’t be bothered anymore. He just found the nearest candy rock to sit on, and breathed heavily as the ice cream snow slowly collected on top of him, and covered him whole.\n\n\nAt that point, there was nothing else he could do; his muscles just didn’t want to move anymore, and his body felt as though it had started to melt in the most literal sense. He felt cold- the coldest he’d felt in his entire life- yet he wasn’t shaking anymore. Sitting on that rock, not even halfway done with his work, he slowly transformed into a living vanilla ice cream statue.\n\n\nAnd like all beautiful ice cream statues, he had to be transported to the ice cream counter! There he stood for the rest of his shift with a big red cherry on the top of his head, to be admired by the guests among the other statues- many of which were also so realistic, that one could only wonder if they were fellow unfortunate mine workers as well. Every once in a while, the scoop took a little bit out of him to serve to a customer, but never enough to make him fall over or collapse, while his body magically regenerated itself. Berkut was frozen cold and yearned to cuddle next to a hot furnace more than he ever had, but at least he could be thankful that he didn’t have to be shovelling anymore. Being a living ice cream statue was a lot easier of a job…\n\n\n—\n\n\n“Oh… Oh gosh, finally!” Berkut lay down in the fresh grass at the start of his new workday, soaking in the warm rays of the morning sunshine. “I thought I was going to freeze to death in there… Or at least catch a… sneeze… Cold! There it is…”\n\n\n“Working is pretty tough, huh?” The shopkeeper dragon smiled patiently as he let his employee regenerate a little bit in the sun. “Well, you know… There is also the option of not trying to steal from my business! But I’ll be nice to you today and send you somewhere warm.”\n\n\n“Please do…” The wolf sighed, getting up from the ground when he felt that his fur had dried in the sun. “Anywhere but the ice cream mines.”\n\n\n“You really don’t have too much time left… Just keep working like you did, and you’ll be done in no time!” The dragon petted the fuzzy wolf on the head and looked at him reassuringly, with a sense of thinly veiled empathy. “Come, let’s visit the cookie factory!”\n\n\nThe gingerbread chimneys of the factory were already in sight, so they didn’t teleport. Instead, the dragon let Berkut hold onto his tail, and flew him to the factories, the two just gliding through the front door. The building was a pretty impressive one: everything was made out of delicious looking decorated gingerbread cookies, including the many interesting, moving machines and gizmos that put the products- the cookies for sale- together in the first place.\n\n\n“Wow!” Berkut, at first, found it difficult to even think of what to say. He was impressed by all the machinery and engineering around him, and enchanted by the delicious, sweet smell- albeit he was already feeling sick from all the sugar he’d consumed in the last couple of days. “Everything is so… Automated here! What am I even gonna do?”\n\n\n“The good news is, you yourself won’t have to do anything! I’m giving you a break!” The shopkeeper smiled, watching Berkut’s confused reaction before continuing. “But of course, that doesn’t mean you’ll be useless. In a moment, you’ll go through the cookie making process as if you were made of dough, and you’ll become a massive decorated cookie to serve as a decoration- or eye-candy, I should say- for the customers in the store!”\n\n\n“O-okay…” Berkut nodded, looking around as he thought about what each of the machines would feel like to go through. But the more he thought, the less confident he got; some of those contraptions looked straight up deadly for a flesh and blood wolf guy to go through. “B-but how will I even…”\n\n\n“Well how about we turn you into a sugary sludge first!” The dragon pointed one of his long clawed fingers at our protagonist and cast a magic spell, causing both of them to levitate. He slowly carried the floating, kicking Berkut over to a big hopper that dispensed sludge onto a conveyor belt below, which supplied it to the rest of the factory. This was apparently the starting point of cookie production.\n\n\nWith that, the wolf suddenly started feeling… Weird. Slimy at first, then more elastic, as his body slowly began to melt and deform, turning into gray and red colored sludge as he started to lose his shape. He slowly melted and dripped into the hopper and travelled downwards to the exit of the hopper, where he’d be dispensed along with the rest of the- non sentient- dough. “And the machines will take care of the rest! See you tomorrow!”\n\n\n“What’s happening to me again…” The wolf thought to himself, unable to speak as his mouth had ceased to exist. He didn’t feel any pain, of course, but the sensations he felt were certainly weird… He’d never been turned into living cookie dough before, after all. With his original sensory organs gone, he’d lost his sense of sight, smell, hearing and taste, but he could somehow still feel everything happening to him in real time. That was probably a side effect of the magic, or maybe just the fact that he was still alive, after all.\n\n\nFirst, the sludge had to be kneaded, as there were still plenty of air bubbles inside. The first thing Berkut felt after several minutes on the conveyor belt was a large amount of pressure that completely spread him apart, before gigantic, heavy rolling pins began to roll up and down his gooey body, making him even flatter. With each roll, Berkut could feel his thickness decreasing, and by the end, he was pretty much flatter than a pancake. Only then did he move on to the next machine, which ended up feeling even stranger.\n\n\nAfter being rolled out, a massive heavy frame was pressed on Berkut’s flat body. Although he couldn’t see it exactly, he could feel that the frame was roughly the shape of an anthropomorphic wolf, complete with a head, four limbs and a tail. The large cookie cutter stencil was pressed hard into the sentient dough, and when it lifted and the excess was removed, a big, blank wolf cookie was left on the belt, traveling on towards its next destination.\n\n\nThe following stop was Berkut’s perfect opportunity to regenerate after his chilly day at work the previous shift: the several hundred degrees hot oven with a burning fire inside! Even just approaching the oven, he could feel that things were getting a lot warmer… At first, it felt great- especially after what he’d gone through- but it just got hotter and hotter and hotter… Until it felt like he was literally being licked by red hot flames, and when the door was closed, there was absolutely no way for fresh air inside anymore. The temperature was increasing rapidly.\n\n\n“Gosh… Oh gosh… It’s so hot in here…” Berkut thought to himself as he was slowly being cooked; the heat was almost unbearable, and there was no way for his body to cool itself without the ability to sweat. He stayed there for several minutes, expanding as his raw dough cooked, until he was finally ready, and transported out of the baking area.\n\n\nAfter a brief period where he was allowed to cool a little bit- which felt like a heavenly relief- the half done Wolf cookie had finally arrived at its final stop before becoming a finished product: the decorating station! His body never lost its gray and red color scheme, but the cool, colored sugary paste that was being squeezed on his body drew out his details perfectly- exactly where everything used to be from his gray belly, red paws and cheeks, and even his black hair.\n\n\nTo finish, the machine also drew him a pair of eyes, ears and a big dot for a nose, finally giving him back his senses. Berkut was finally ready: A big, beautiful cookie ready to be displayed in the store next to all the other, non-sentient cookies.\n\n\nAfter being allowed to properly cool down, he was indeed placed into a big truck, stuffed with pillows to make sure his brittle body didn’t break or get injured at all- and was brought into the store, where the careful hand of the dragon picked him up and put him where he belonged. For the rest of the day, the wolf’s only job remained to stay there, being pretty for all the hungry customers to look at.\n\n\n—\n\n\n“Well, Berkut, it seems like your final workday has arrived!” His boss greeted the exhausted wolf at the start of his fifth shift, looking even more ceremonial than before- even though he always held an aura of festivity. His employee stood in front of him, already stumbling from exhaustion as he waited for (hopefully) his final instructions.\n\n\n“I-is it about to be finally over?” He asked with a hopeful anticipation, having already lost count of the hours he’d pulled through working. Even though he still preferred this over being reported to the police, he couldn’t help but feel like he would’ve had an easier time in jail.\n\n\n“It is indeed… Given you keep doing your work, that is!” The shopkeeper smiled, inching a bit closer to his employee. “But bully for you! For your last day’s task, you’ll barely have to do anything besides looking fabulous for our guests! I’ve noticed you excelled in your tasks of being on display, whether you were made of chocolate, ice cream, gummies or gingerbread. So today, I’ll turn you into an extravagant wolf cake, and put you on display in the central podium, right in the middle of the window and well visible for everyone who enters!”\n\n\n“O-oh…” Berkut really wasn’t sure how to react. Although he didn’t fully want to admit it, being looked at, admired, wanted… It all made him feel pretty special, and being on display all those other days were truly his favorite moments of working- and not just because he didn’t have to do any hard physical labor in the meantime. He was admittedly a little shy, especially to be put in a spot like that, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to refuse such a deal. There was only one doubt in his mind. “B-but are you sure I’ve worked enough to make up for the loss?”\n\n\n“If we calculate with my original offer for an hourly wage, and take into account that you’ve mostly just sat around, being all pretty on the shelf… Probably not!” The dragon explained, smiling. “But because I can see that you’ve truly regretted what you’ve done, and that you’ve been trying to make up for it to the best of your abilities, I’m willing to let the rest of it slide~”\n\n\n“T-thank you!” Berkut stuttered, stepping closer to hug the dragon, who was taken aback quite a bit by the gesture; he was frozen in place for a little while, before returning the hug, wrapping his short arms around the fluffy body of his naughty guest.\n\n\n“There there… But let’s not get sentimental now! You’ve still got work to do~” He said dutifully, before reaching out his hand like he always did before casting a spell, and shooting a beam of magical energy towards the wolf.\n\n\nThe metamorphosis that followed happened slowly, gradually, but was highly fascinating to look at. While all the other transformations were quite instantaneous, this time, it happened stage by stage, turning Berkut from an anthropomorphic furry creature into the sweetest looking cake in the shop. \n\n\nIt all started when he began feeling something strange… Sticky and sugary at his fingertips. Instinctively, he lifted his paw to lick and taste it; his ears perked up instantly as he recognized the taste of his favorite cake ever: Black forest! Chocolate, cherries, cream… A combination that he could never get tired of, and really was the best representation of him as food. His paws, once rough from all the heavy labor, had turned smooth and shiny, as if coated with a hard, sugary icing. His fur seemed to stiffen in places, curling into delicate piped ridges, as if they were rosettes carefully crafted by a skilled baker’s hand.\n\n\n“Mmmh…” Berkut vocalized as he felt his insides start to twist, turn and transform, his organs turning into cake one by one. He would have tried to talk, but his tongue was already made of chocolate sponge cake, his chocolate saliva drooling from the corners of his mouth. Whenever he inhaled, he could only smell the enchantingly sweet smell of cake, further planting in his mind that he was a wolf no more; he was a dessert.\n\n\nAs his organs slowly turned to cake, his body inadvertently began to droop. His soft bones- if he even had any bones left at all by that point- were no longer able to provide support for his body, causing him to slowly lose his anthropomorphic shape and collapse into a tower of soft dough, with only a few defining features sticking out, such as his head and his whipped cream tail.\n\n\nOnce he’s collapsed to a size almost half as tall as he used to be on his feet, his torso could be felt hardening again. As everything inside had transformed and stabilized, his lower body became the solid base for the wolf cake, cylindrical in shape, and made up of layers of chocolate sponge cake and cherry-vanilla cream filling. Although his silhouette was entirely unrecognizable now, the colorful stripes of cake and cream on his body still clearly resembled his fur pattern, and his face had been kept as a smaller, protruding section of the cake, complete with chocolate eyes, cake ears, a strawberry nose, and plenty of chocolate cream to replace his hair. His limbs had mostly retracted , only leaving his enlarged paws outside of the main cake structure, which made four smaller cake-islands besides of the large cylinder, with half strawberries to represent what were once claws in their place.\n\n\nWith that, Berkut’s transformation was finally complete. There he stood, in the middle of the podium with pride, and even though he couldn’t move or even make a sound, his boss could tell that he was very, very proud of how tasty he looked. And how deserving he was of that spot there! If it wasn’t for magic, he could only have been crafted by a master baker, with how perfectly round his base was, how meticulously the vanilla cream had been squeezed and spread in a way to resemble flowing fur, and how adorable his cake face looked; obviously inanimate to the outside observer, yet so full of life… As if the cake really had a soul.\n\n\nAs the morning sun rose above the rooftops across the street, its first rays pierced the storefront glass, flooding the shop with golden light and casting a warm glow over the delicious wolf cake. One by one, the passersby noticed the extravagant dessert sitting inside, each stopping to stare- and drool- for a while… As if it had a magical magnetic power that made it simply irresistible to a hungry sweet tooth. Customers quickly started flooding in, filling the store with rumbling bellies, each wanting to take a bite of the cake. At first, Berkut was quite terrified by all those people wanting to have a taste of him; if everyone got even as much as a single bite, he would be nothing but crumbs by the end of the day! Thankfully for him though, there was a protective glass casing around his sweet, spongy body, leaving the guests only to be able to admire him with their eyes, and not their taste buds.\n\n\nBerkut spent the rest of his day getting compliments, being looked at and admired like a real celebrity. He even overheard some conversations about his picture trending on social media, and people wanting to flock in from all corners of the world to the store, which had just become an overnight sensation. It was completely full all throughout the day, and even at closing time, the dragon had to practically chase guests out of the establishment, as he couldn’t close the doors even an hour after he had officially closed. Berkut was still in his place, looking just as fresh and delicious as he was in the morning; the magic did wonders keeping him in pristine condition. He just stood there until everyone was finally gone, and the dragon could finally transform him back into a wolf when nobody was looking.\n\n\n“Wow, good job!” The dragon clapped excitedly before casting a spell to turn Berkut back into his old self, who transformed almost immediately back into his wolf form, sitting in a cramped pose under the glass cover before it was lifted and he could get out. “You’ve made a real sensation out of my store, thank you!”\n\n\n“N-no problem, really~” Berkut smiled shyly; he was indeed quite proud of himself, but he knew that it was really the magic, doing most of the heavy lifting in leading him to success.\n\n\n“Well, I have to say, you really make a good cake!” His boss smiled, petting him on the head. “And I can tell you also enjoyed working for me. So, how about I make you a deal? I can let you stay here forever! Sitting in my shop, being a living advertisement piece… And I can pay you a big chunk of the income that your publicity generates!”\n\n\n“That’s a… Flattering offer…” The wolf froze slightly at the proposition, staring at the ground with pensive eyes. When he started working at the shop, he never thought he’d be considering a full time position there, but being on display really did stroke his ego… And if the trend continued, it would have also brought him quite a bit of dough! But… What would he spend it on? There was so much more to life than just standing in a display, and watching others drool as they begged to take a bite out of his creamy butt…\n\n\n“But I have to refuse.” He continued, feeling quite sad, but ultimately satisfied with his decision. “Thank you for everything though… It was very fun to work at your shop! I really hope I made up for my initial… Naughtiness~”\n\n\n“You made up for more than I ever could have asked for, Berkut!” The dragon grinned, before reaching behind his back and manifesting a small gift box seemingly out of thin air. “And of course, you’re allowed to go on your way. But please, if you do, take this gift with you!”\n\n\nThe wolf hesitantly took the small box and carefully opened it up, still expecting some sort of trick from the slightly unpredictable dragon. But instead of yet another crazy magic spell, he found something still and delicate nestled inside; It was a miniature cake- no larger than his paw- crafted with impossible precision. The tiny figure was unmistakable: a perfect, scaled-down replica of himself in cake form, just like the one he had been transformed into. Every detail was there, down to the tiny bits of strawberry and the most precise buttercream decorations that made him look so divinely delicious.\n\n\n“Take it; that’s yours to keep.” The dragon floated back, letting Berkut walk to the door for the first time since he started working, showing that he really was done. “It’s real cake! You may feel free to eat it, or keep it to admire for as long as you want. My magic will make sure it never expires~”\n\n\nBerkut nodded, looking thankfully into the smiling dragon’s eyes. It was already late, and he was sure that his nervous friends were already looking for him everywhere. He had to rush home, but he could still hear the friendly voice of his former boss from the door: “Oh, and please come and visit us again sometime!”"
}