Finding Comfort in a Curse (Patreon)

Asma is a sorceress who wields magic that draws its power from the humiliation of others. Having set up the perfect trap, now all she needs is the right marks… but a problem from her past rears its adorable head…

Finding Comfort in a Curse

Asma grinned as she looked over at her handiwork. Finally, after so many years of work, her scheme was complete.

She waved her hands a few times to send some sparks of magic across the floor, changing the old rug into a set of foam tiles with the alphabet all over them. The final icing on the cake that was the main room of her day-care.

Well, it wasn’t just a day-care. The cribs in the room to the side would have her charges in them overnight as well for one, their adorably designed white bars visible past the doorway that was equally well decorated. But that was just a minor difference compared to its main purpose.

Asma’s magic had always been useful to her in some ways but deriving it from the humiliation of others was both a blessing and curse. It was incredibly fun finding the right buttons to press to push someone down to the point where she could feel energy coursing through her. They’d start being so certain of themselves, so sure that they’d be able to get out of the situation she’d put them in, only to find themselves constantly failing. She had this down to a near science at this point, however magical it was in design. But it also took some substantial magical work to make it viable. Even magic required work, this was just her particular method.

Build a place to keep her magical vessels, find out what makes them the most embarrassed and then keep throwing them into worse and worse scenarios.

A day-care needed staff who felt in control of themselves, superior to their charges, able to be the adult in the room. It attracted confident individuals straight to it, sometimes nurses who wanted a new job or young graduates of education who were entering the job market with all the naïve confidence of youth. Both were perfect for her purposes. She’d interview them, start to weave her magic around them, then take them to this room for a few tests. Once they failed the first couple, she’d make sure they’d be in diapers before the end of the day. Then she’d start to regress them, make them feel smaller and more and more powerless as she felt her own power grow and grow. And once they were no longer able to feel humiliated by the experience, she’d give them to the local orphanage. They’d be in a loving family in no time, she was sure of it.

Of course, they stood no chance at all. They weren’t meant to, the entire setup was designed to be one hundred percent effective every time.

Well, except one time. She shuddered a little thinking about that. The one annoying little pup who’d made her go borderline insane. That kid had looked like a perfect mark too, instead he’d made sure she’d had to move over an entire state to get away from her last project. The day-care back there was now deserted, a hollow shell of a building that had once been her pride and joy, ruined by a simple miscalculation on her part.

Her magic wasn’t strong enough to affect the memories of those that knew the applicants, just to make it impossible for anyone investigating to work out whether it was them in the day-care, or that she was responsible. A quick little flick of her wrist and anyone asking questions had them answered and left. Eventually, in hindsight, it was inevitable that someone would work out that a couple of the applicants went missing after applying for a job at the place. What she hadn’t anticipated was that someone would try something as crazy as trying to get regressed.

So, rather than using up the last of her magical energy to provide herself with more sustenance the damn brat had immediately started enjoying the whole thing without even skipping a beat. She’d brought him into the day-care, asked him to do a few tasks… and she’d felt nothing. Normally she could start to feel her marks getting concerned, annoyed at small failures. He’d revelled in them, apologising for failing and giggling like a child even before she’d started weaving the smallest of spells.

She should’ve just abandoned it there, instead she’d pushed harder. He wet his pants and just carried on doing the increasingly ridiculous and childish tasks. When she’d pointed this out, he’d just responded with surprise and apologised again. There was no humiliation, no annoyance or frustration, even after that. She’d put him in a diaper, regressed him with the last of her magic and he’d just immediately taken to the day-care like a fish to water.

So then she had a day-care full of babies who she could draw only small amounts of energy from and one charge who was actively draining her own. She knew she needed to get him back up to adulthood as soon as possible, but once she’d managed to get two more charges in and her magic up to the ability to do that, she wasn’t prepared for his response. Words that had made her shudder and her eyes go wide.

“CHANGE ME BACK! I WANNA BE A BABY!”

She shivered again as she went back to her desk. The entire purpose of her day-care was built on the premise that people didn’t want this. So once he’d left, she knew she had to pack up shop and leave. She couldn’t just wipe his memory, he’d found his way there once and he’d probably do so again. She’d given all her charges to another nursery and moved to a different state. It was well timed too, a few times on the way past the old place while she’d been packing up she’d noticed a couple of childishly dressed adults disappointedly walking away once they saw it was abandoned. He’d told people like him where to go, she’d never have been able to keep the business under wraps at that point. Hopefully people didn’t believe him that much.

But that was all behind her. Now she was in a new state, with a new place to get going. Asma had already had several applications after she’d put the vacancy sign up in the window. Now the deadline for getting them in had passed and she was ready to start looking them over for good marks. She sat down at the reception desk that faced out onto the street, reminding herself to take in the hiring sign at the end of the day.

She had a few things that discounted individuals immediately. No parents or grandparents, they were sometimes after a small part time job while taking care of kids (or even after seeing them leave for college), and because they felt like they could dote on little kids a day-care seemed a good fit. Of course, they’d also cotton on pretty quick it wasn’t a normal day-care. They’d been around long enough to ask questions Asma didn’t want to have to answer. Plus she wasn’t really in the habit of breaking up families with dependents. A little too harsh for her tastes.

They had to have relevant qualifications too, it made the failures all the more acute and heightened her own ability to feed off of it. Young adults barely out of high-school were not good fodder for this, but college kids? Perfect.

A few of the CVs were immediately dropped into the trash next to her as she read through them. No point in starting out with ones she could barely even make sense of. She needed to actually know who she was going to talk to. After about fifteen minutes she was left with two piles. Definite options on the left and maybes on the right. She’d get the definite pile in as soon as possible and move onto the maybes if some didn’t respond.

So many promising and accomplished resumes. She tapped her fingers together, feeling small amounts of energy jumping between them at even the thought of what was to come. She just had to keep that little bit of excitement in check a little longer. Soon their only accomplishments would be filling their pants or managing a round peg in a square hole. A little chuckle came to her lips as she got ready to call the first applicant.

She stopped as she heard a tapping on the window of the day-care. Looking up her eyes went wide, her jaw dropping in shock as what she saw made her blood run cold.

There he was. The damn wolf had found her. He was at the window, a piece of paper in his hand and pressing himself against the glass. Those red eyes, glazed over with something akin to delirium, that fuzzy grey fur that stood on end all over the place. That damn red polo shirt he’d worn on the first interview!

How? How had he found her?!

She got up, unsure as to whether she wanted to run to the back office or open the door and get him in before he did anything stupid. He’d noticed he’d got her attention and had grabbed a red pen from his pocket, writing on the front of the piece of paper. Her curiosity piqued, she squinted as he pressed it against the glass.

It was a CV, clearly describing his name, address and qualifications. His experience had been crossed out with the red pen and, instead, words big enough for her to easily read were now emblazoned on the front:

“I WANT TO BE A BABY!”

Asma’s jaw dropped. He was clearly desperate, his eyes wide and his legs bouncing up and down as he kept trying to get her to come outside. She could swear he was almost crying.

For some reason something about that face made her take pity on him. She couldn’t feel anything coming off of him she could use, nothing that would enable her to use her magic to get rid of him. She needed these applicants first, she had to preserve what energy she had to put them in a position where she could recharge and get back on track. But this was a massive problem.

Eventually, after a couple of minutes of strange silence punctuated only by the occasional tapping on the window, Asma walked towards the door, pulling the lock open and taking a deep breath. She didn’t want to do this, but she didn’t have a choice.

“Please, come in Jimmy”

The wolf beamed at her, running through the door with all the energy of the toddler she’d once turned him into. Maybe she hadn’t quite got everything back in order when she’d brought him back to adulthood. Or maybe his adult self hadn’t even come back properly.

“Oh thank…”

“Quiet” Asma interrupted “What the hell are you doing here? Did you move states to find me?”

The wolf was taken aback by the sudden interrogation, looking down at his feet as his tail went between his legs.

“N.. No… I was visiting a friend here yesterday and…. And I saw you setting up and saw the hiring sign and…”

The hyena groaned, her eyes shutting as she took a deep breath “Great, fantastic, just my luck I guess”

The wolf was clearly a little nervous, his left foot was tapping against the floor, his tail still hanging between his legs with its white tip curled around his right knee.

“Well, you’ve already said why you’re here. But I’ve already told you to get lost, so why are you back?” Asma pushed, walking towards the wolf so that she visibly towered over him. He was clearly a little scared but there was a clear sense of enjoyment emanating from his quivering form. How had she missed all this the first time?

“I… I really want… I loved the day-care so much and…”

“You weren’t supposed to like it?!” Asma stared down at him. She knew how to be a firm caretaker, but this felt like it was just giving the kid what he wanted “You were supposed to hate it, you were supposed to be humiliated!”

“But… but you were such a good nanny and…”

That took the hyena aback. A good nanny? She’d pushed him down to babyhood, changed him into diapers and then desperately tried to get him to feel embarrassed by something! How was that…

A sudden bolt of realisation went through her head as her memories added up the dots. If he’d wanted to feel babyish of course everything she’d been trying would come across as being a “good nanny”. Of course she’d seem like she was trying to make him happy.

“Ok… let me get this straight. You feel happy when you’re a baby?”

The wolf nodded “Yeah… it was really fun and… I didn’t have to worry about anything. You just gave me more and more babyish things and it was so comforting.”

“Comforting?” Asma asked, her brain trying to make sense of this wolfs strange response to her magical torture “I was trying to make you as uncomfortable as possible!”

Jimmy stepped back “So.. sorry! I didn’t know you were… you were trying to be mean… but it wasn’t to me… it was nice”

Nice?! Asma could feel the magics inside of her almost instinctively going into action. She wanted to pull this wolf down to the depth of his worst feelings. Find that little button that would make him feel like the most embarrassed pup she could, then draw out enough magic to turn his brain to mush.

“Can… can I stay again?”

“What?! No!” sparks flickered from her fingernails as the wolf started to visibly shrink “You can’t stay here! Every second you’re here you make things harder! I…” she stopped as she realised what was happening “Look what you’re making me do!”

Jimmy looked down at himself, getting smaller by the second as the magical energies flickering around him started to bring him closer to the floor.

“Wait… but… but you don’t want me to stay? But you’re turning me into…”

Asma breathed in and looked up at the ceiling. Every second in the room with this pup was going to drive her insane. How the hell did she deal with this?

“M… Miss Asma… I…”

“WHAT?!”

“I… I need…”

She looked down at the pup, his body now that of a small child. He’d wet his pants, a small puddle developing under him as the now oversized chino’s he’d arrived in started to absorb the accident.

“Oh for goodness sake!” without a second thought she picked him up, holding him out in front of her as the last of his bladder released. Jimmy's undies were soaked, and even knowing what was happening, Asma had a very easy solution to this that was desperately needed before her carpets were ruined.

All through the journey to the play area of the day-care, Jimmy was giggling. Asma knew he was getting exactly what he wanted, but at this point there was no other option but to just deal with it later. He was becoming a baby whether she wanted him to be or not.

“Am I getting diapers Miss Asma?”

“Yes, you’re getting diapers” she groaned “Don’t you dare poop before we get there”

The wolf's giggles intensified as his body finally stopped shrinking. He’d landed somewhere around two years old, his polo shirt now a blanket covering everything up. Asma could barely keep herself from blowing the rest of her magic on turning him into a babbling infant, but this was as far as she had ever wanted to let things go.

“Hold still, I’ll get you changed and then I’ll work out what to do with you…” she placed Jimmy down on the changing table, removing his polo shirt before pulling the strap tight around him. The pup was now positively beaming, his goal firmly achieved. Asma could only roll her eyes as she grabbed some wipes and powder, placing them next to him as she opened a brand new box of diapers and took out the first one.

“You’re making me break into all my stuff before I’m open you know?” she pulled his legs up and slipped the crinkling underwear beneath his bottom before dusting him down with powder “You’re going to make this up to me somehow kid”

Jimmy smiled back “Ok Miss Asma” he stuck his thumb in his mouth and closed his eyes.

Asma felt a small smile come to her own lips. Damn it, even she had to admit he was kind of cute like that. Her charges tended to be bawling infants or desperately trying to escape rather than actively enjoying the whole process. She taped the diaper up between his legs and unstrapped him, returning the wolf to her arms and putting him at eye level with her.

“Right, I’m getting you into a crib. I don’t want to hear a peep out of you alright? I’ve got to get some hires in here this week.”

“My fwiends would…”

“NO!” she coughed as she controlled herself “No, Jimmy, your friends would not be good hires. If they’re anything like you they’d turn me into a withering husk in no time.”

“I wanna help though”

Asma could feel her emotional barriers trying to drop. This kid was going to make her go soft.

“I’ll find something for you to do when you finish your nap. Just… be quiet for now alright. Miss Asma has to actually be an adult”

Jimmy just giggled at that response as they arrived in the nap room. Asma carefully lowered the pup into one of the many cribs and started up the mobile hanging above him. Dressed in just his diaper, the wolf looked like he was having the time of his life.

“Go to sleep, I’ll come back in a few hours. You’re gonna work for this kid, this isn’t going to be an easy ride.”

Another little giggle came from the crib as she walked out of the room and back to the reception desk. As she pressed the buttons on the desk phone to contact the first interviewee her brain was already forming a few ways to get Jimmy involved in this process. After all, if caretakers couldn’t even take care of the happiest baby imaginable, then they’d really struggle to feel in control.

Maybe this could be fun after all...