Rica watched from the trees as the last of the candles was snuffed out in the window of the curio shop. She�d been watching for hours, but the young raccoon had learned long ago that if you wanted to have a good haul, you had to be patient. As soon as the street was deserted, she dropped down silently.
 
As an anthro raccoon, she�d been born to be a thief, but lately humans had been doing a remarkable job of horning in on her territory. She could have simply shaken her fist and cursed them for it, but Rica was smarter than that. If someone inferior is doing something better than you, it means they know something you don�t. Better to learn than to curse.
 
It turned out, there were two important lessons to be learned. The first was that some nice snug clothes the color of shadows had a wonderful way of cutting her already sleek profile down to something that faded effortlessly into the darkness. It cost her a bit of agility, since she had to pin her tail to one leg and run it down her trousers, but that was a small price to pay for the benefits. A small part of her was pleased at how the tight clothes showed off her curves, too.
 
She didn�t have much of a chest, though what she did have was quite nice if her mate was to be believed. Her buns, however, were exquisite, and she knew it. Just the right combination of round and firm. Wrapping them in a pair of leggings that could barely contain them had a wonderful way of making that particular asset stand out. Sure, it didn�t do her much good in the thievery department, but when she got home, it was nice to see how wild it drove her mate.
 
The other lesson in robbery she�d learned from the humans was that breaking a window and slipping inside was a sure way to be heard, while a bit of practice with a long, thin tool could pick lock without a whisper of sound. That one took a bit of practice and required a tutor, but the investment of time and money paid for itself ten times over the first time she�d put it to use
 
Once she�d picked up these two tricks and combined them with her dyed-in-the-wool cunning and stealth, there wasn�t another thief in the kingdom who could handle the jobs she could. Most of the time if she was careful she could rob a place of a few key items and the owners wouldn�t realize for weeks.
 
Such would surely be the case here. The place was the best stocked curio shop in town. She�d been inside many, many times, and the shelves were far too filled with goods for the owner to check the inventory with any regularity. If she didn�t get greedy and picked a handful of mid-level items, she might be able to rob the place half a dozen times before he wised up and increased the security.
 
A dozen noiseless steps brought her to the door. Three careful minutes sprung the lock, and just like that she was inside.
 
First she took a long, careful whiff with her sensitive nose. She�d not smelled any guard dogs, or lingering evidence of them, while she was searching the place initially, but it was better to be safe than sorry. When the scent was free of threat, she opened her eyes and stalked slowly forward. She�d made it barely ten steps when something made her ears tingle and her whiskers twitch.
 
�Magic,� she hissed, turning on the balls of her feet and slinking back for the door.
 
She should have known. A place this well stocked was bound to have something magic protecting it. She�d not learned any spells herself, but after very nearly being captured or killed by the stuff more than a dozen times in the past, she�d developed a sensitivity to it. This was a potent enchantment of some kind. Nothing she wanted to tangle with. She reached the door and extended her hand for the knob when a subtle motion above her caught her eye. Dodging backward with a roll, she sprang upright again as something rattled to the ground just in front of the entrance with the ring of metal and the clink of crystal.
 
She wrinkled her nose and squinted. There on the floor was a green, blown-glass figurine of a dragon. It was maybe the size of an apple, most of that space taken up by a portly little belly that looked to be hollow. Aside from the pot belly, it was rather delicately made. There was a long neck ending in narrow pointed head and snout. Cunning little paws, both fore and hind, had been shaped at the end of the legs, and a long tail curled around the perimeter of the gold base. The finishing touch was a pair of comically small wings jutting from its back.
 
For a brief moment, she considered taking the figurine. The base, if she was right, seemed to be at the very least gold plated, and the craftsmanship on the figurine itself was of the highest caliber. It would probably fetch quite a price. That thought was ended not by good sense but by fear, as while she appraised its value, she saw its muzzle open and its little tummy swirl with a flash of green fire.
 
She didn�t have time to leap to safety. All she could do was flinch and hold up her arms as it belched forth a blast of emerald flame. It was a testament to her thievish upbringing that even fear of being burned alive didn�t prompt so much as a whimper. She remained silent� and after a moment found that the searing pain never came. She opened her eyes and saw that the flame, while it was rapidly consuming her clothes, wasn�t even singeing her fur. In the space of a few seconds the last scrap of cloth fluttered to ash and she stood fully nude, her ringed tail flipping free of the cloth that had been binding it to her leg.
 
The wonder and relief of having escaped a fiery death swept away when she looked down at the figurine� then slowly shifted her gaze upward. The thing had grown. Still a gleaming thing of green glass, it was now much closer to the size of a proper dragon, its head brushing the roof and its lips curled back in a grin.
 
She turned again and broke into a sprint. There was a back door. If she could just make it, then maybe she could--
 
*WHIP* *CLINK*
 
Again her thoughts were interrupted, this time by a cool, iron-hard tightness closing about her ankles. She nearly pitched forward, but the glass fore-claws of the thing caught her, locking her arms to her sides in a vice-like grip and turning her around.
 
She trembled lightly as it stared down at her, but for better or worse it didn�t wait long to make its move. Holding her rigidly upright, it threw its maw wide and brought its head down. With a long, glassy squeak her head was forced into the back of its throat. The pressure was incredible, the glass bulging around her, pinning her ears to her head, but giving only just enough to let her head through.
 
The dragon shuffled forward and forced its head further and further down her upright body, straightening its neck around her and packing her body into its length. She felt her breasts squashed to her chest, then felt the cold glass flatten the fur against her midriff and pack her perfect little bottom in a crystal wrapper. It didn�t hurt, but the cocoon of glass was utterly unforgiving, pinning arms and legs tight and offering not even a hint of room to struggle. It didn�t stop until it had stuffed all of her into its maw, her feet still pressed hard against the ground as it rammed its jaws flat against the floorboards.
 
Satisfied it had all of her, the dragon curled its neck and sat back. Unable to resist, her body curled with it. All told, the neck was almost a perfect match for her height. Her toes wriggled in the space within the creature�s mouth, and her nose sniffed at the cool air just beyond the opening to its hollow interior. The rest was arched into to the serpentine neck between.
 
Suddenly the pressure at her thighs became much greater, and she realized the figurine was swallowing. The cold glass slid along her body again, bringing another long, low squeak as her nipples dragged against the smooth interior in a very distracting way. She was gradually extruded into the spacious �tummy� of the thing, and once her hips were clear of the pinch of glass at the entrance, she tumbled to the bottom and rattled to a rest within.
 
�No! No, no, no!� she hissed, feeling desperately around a space that was just a bit too small to stand in.
 
Her bottle up voice reverberated back at her. The opening she�d come through had sealed up, and there was no other hint of natural plumbing within the space. She was trapped.
 
Panic was beginning to set in when the portly enchantment waddled back to the small gold base and eased itself down. As soon as the thing�s haunches touched the base, there was a blinding flash. When her vision returned, she found the base below her now matched the size of the dragon very well. When she looked up, she saw that the tables and cabinets around her were towering, enormous� The figurine had returned to its original size, with her inside.
 
�Noooooo!� she screeched, beating her fists against the tummy with a pathetic little clink.
 
The dragon simply nestled itself on its stand and became still again.
 
~~~
 
When morning came, Prag the Collector paced up to his door and jingled his keychain. The human had a rigid procedure each morning, and he made sure never to deviate. It was handy, because it was a quick way to know if anything had gone wrong in his absence. It didn�t take long for that aspect of his morning ritual to pay off, as when he tried the knob, he found the door was unlocked. Someone had been here�
 
He pushed the door slowly open and peered inside. There, on the floor, precisely where he�d been expecting it, was a prison dragon. And inside, just as he�d expected, he found a would-be thief sleeping curled up its belly. He stooped and picked up the dragon, rattling it about to wake its occupant.
 
The creature inside was a raccoon, quite attractive for those with such tastes. He smiled as she recovered from the jostling and began to scream and curse at him.
 
�I�m sorry. It is quite difficult to understand you. But as you couldn�t have ended up in there without having been meaning to rob me, I�m not sure I care to know what you have to say. Now there are two ways we can go about this. These figurines cost quite a bit to enchant, and having activated this one means I�ll have to set one of my others in its place, then prepare a new one to replace it. I expect you to pay for the damages.�
 
�� How much,� the little creature grudgingly asked.
 
�Five gold should suffice,� he said.
 
�That�s absurd! Even enchanters don�t charge that much for�� she began to object.
 
�Then we shall pay for it the second way,� he said.
 
He fished out an odd bit of parchment with a strange symbol on it. Placing the parchment on the counter, he then placed the figurine on top of it. She shuddered within the thing, clearly aware that something was happening. Slowly the glass beneath her feet rose up, locking them in place. The glass continued to rise, like the figurine was slowly filling with water. She realized what was happening, first struggling, then pleading as her body was increasingly locked in green glass. He ignored her, simply grinning until the entirety of the space within the figurine was filled and she was trapped, a look of surprise and fear on her face, like a bug in amber.
 
~~~
 
Rica couldn�t move. The temperature all around her was the same strangely cool sensation one always tended to get when touching glass. For a few terrifying second she felt certain she would suffocate, but she found, for reasons she couldn�t fathom, she could in fact breathe, though only shallowly. With great effort, she discovered she could shift her eyes as well. She used this newfound power to glance aside at something he was scribbling on a paper card. Upon seeing it, her heart dropped.
 
One of a kind. 5 Gold.
 
With that, he lifted her to a high shelf and placed her there, propping the card in front of her. She flicked her eyes to the side and noticed there were five other green dragon figurines there� figurines she�d seen over the course over the weeks she�d been casing the place. At the time she�d not looked closely enough to see the men and women within. She�d also not noticed how thick the layer of dust was on the furthest one.
 
She was in for a long wait�