“Alright, break it up, you two!” commanded Dr. Moreau, a surprising air of authority seeping through his voice. “Looks like I won’t need you making more bovine familiars just yet, after all.”
Some invisible force pulled the cow and bull apart, keeping them pushed up against opposite sides of the cage despite their clear attempts to race back towards one another. Erik saw a wild, animal need in their eyes, one that made him almost as uncomfortable as the strangely human intelligence that glinted there, half-obscured by their more bestial qualities.
“I suppose there’s no use keeping the glamor in effect at the moment,” Dr. Moreau sighed. “Erik, allow me to reintroduce you to your brother, Devon, whom I now assume we should refer to as your sister, Daphne.”
“What are you talking… About…?” Erik started to say as Dr. Moreau snapped his fingers, eliciting a shower of sparks as the air shimmered around the bovines’ cage. At the same time, the cow and bull clumsily shuffled up on their hind legs, humanoid features forming as they took on more anthropomorphic countenances. Abdominal and pectoral muscles puffed out and rippled on the bull, while two sets of rather large breasts blossomed above the swollen udder of the cow, each gaining finger-like digits on their hoof-hands. More of the human intelligence returned to their eyes as well.
“Devon?!” Erik gasped, looking at the cow-woman. “Is that you?!”
“Erik, yooou have tooo get ooout ooof here!” the cow-woman droned in a surprisingly melodic, high-pitched voice as she looked at her younger brother, her eyes filling with panic as she glanced between her sibling and the man standing beside him. “He turned me intooo this!”
“I do apologize,” Dr. Moreau said, sounding surprisingly genuine despite the circumstances. “I had mistaken you for a mundane human, you see, and mundanes who enter my shop are… Repurposed to better serve those of us with more magical persuasions. It helps to have a familiar who can think on a human level.”
“Why did you turn him into a cow, though?” Erik demanded. “Wait, what am I talking about? Turn him back! I can’t tell my parents their first-born son is a cow!”
“Easier said than done, I’m afraid,” Dr. Moreau replied. “I could turn her back into a human, but only temporarily. The spell that transformed her has made her new nature as a familiar her true form. Changing one’s true form too many times leads to magical instability. She’s better off as a cow than an unintelligent blob of collapsed magical energy.”
“So, there’s no going back?” Erik sighed.
“There’s no way without just as many pitfalls as benefits,” Dr. Moreau said. “But, I’ll tell you what. As an apology, I’ll let you adopt her for free, and even tutor you in the magic arts. Your brother may have been the latent wizard I had sensed, but as you are closely related by blood and with her new form, you may be able to channel her natural magic much as a true wizard would do. Maybe one day, you’ll even learn enough to figure out your own way of fixing things.”
Erik looked back up into the somber eyes of the being that used to be his older, human brother. She looked torn between the disgust she felt at her own circumstances and that animal need to get back to the bull. Her new form must be affecting her mind quite heavily, Erik thought.
“Fine,” Erik said. “I’ll do it, but just until I can figure out a way to change him… Her back.”
“Splendid!” Dr. Moreau said. “She’ll be free to be in her anthropomorphic form when no other mundanes are about, but she’ll look like a common cow the rest of the time.”
With another snap of his fingers, the cage door opened, and Devon, Daphne, or whatever or whoever she was now, was allowed to step out. She gave a regretful, longing look back to the bull before following Erik and Dr. Moreau out of the impossibly large back room.
“Oh, yeah,” Erik said. “Where are my sister’s other friends? Blaise and Dom?”
“Oh…” Dr. Moreau said with an embarrassed chuckle. “About them…”