Once the queen’s ladies joined their sovereign in cow-hood, it did not take long for more people to follow their example. Soon, more of the noble houses began calling on the best magicians they knew to give them the same treatment.
At first, only the women took up the trend, but that eventually changed. Many unmarried lords found themselves disadvantaged, having no wives or daughters to take the plunge for them, and they quickly went to their best wizards for a solution. Sadly, they were told that the milk farms had no need for any more bulls. So, without better options, and since nobody was quite willing to say that a milk cow was the less desirable path, the men joined the women in boosting the kingdom’s milk supply. Not to be outdone, even the married men also joined in, and the royal court emptied out completely.
Of course, where the nobility leads, the peasantry will follow. Many members of the now-bovine court had boasted their own admirers eager to show their support by embracing the life of dairy cows. All too rapidly, the cow treatment became associated with status and wealth, attracting those trying to climb the social ladder.
In response to this rise in demand, all magicians, wizards, and small-time hedge witches in the kingdom brushed up on their bovine transformation spells and started to advertise, promising ample milk production without the need for periodic impregnation and one’s own choice in hide coloration. The increased marketing did its work, perhaps a little too well. Prices dipped lower as competition became fierce, giving more of the common folk access to what had previously been available only to the rich and titled.
At last, bovine transformation had become so common that the entire face of the kingdom had changed. Cities that had once been expanding shrank inward again, though not because they were languishing. In fact, they were booming, with money from milk sales to neighboring countries pouring in every day. However, all those cows needed pastures, which meant that many buildings, now empty anyway, had to be sold and demolished.
The capital itself had all but vanished, the bustling districts and grand mansions now replaced by rolling hills and fields. Only a cobblestone path marked where the main street had once been, leading all the way to the lush pasture that used to be the royal castle and now fed many of its former inhabitants. Most of the stones from the castle had been repurposed into low stone walls dividing different fields throughout the area. Outside the city, most towns were gone, becoming vast herds of contented cows overseen by very pleased farmers.
For their part, dairy farmers became something of a noble class of their own. As the few remaining bipeds in the kingdom, now more of a cow-dom, they kept things running smoothly. But how long could a nation of cattle last?