Kat's features softened towards Dan, something they did rarely in the last few months. She came up and gently patted his big, muscular shoulder.
"Hey, it's...gonna be ok? I mean...look, that's one of the things this spell is for, personal growth. So, I mean, look at you! All making progress before your changes are even done! Nice!"
She gave him a big, comically forced smile, and he couldn't help but chuckle. She gave him a more normal, and sincere, smile in response.
"There now, feel better?"
Dan nodded.
"Yeah. Thanks Kat...ok, so...what happens next?"
Now that he a) knew he wasn't going to be shipped off to a slaughterhouse and b) had just come to at least a temporary rapprochement with his sister, Dan was actually getting interested in his changes. He'd always found cattle fascinating - about the only interesting thing about school was his classes with the Ag department and occasional involvement with 4-H.
Kat nodded, stepping back to give him some space.
"Well, eventually, you'll turn into a full bull. My magical intent was that the spell offer you insights into your deeper spiritual nature through connection with your emblematic animal, which, hey, technically you've already accomplished by realizing your anger issues.. So, once you're fully changed, you should be able to sense the spell and move to end it whenever you please, at which point you'll start to change back in pretty much the same way you changed."
Dan looked confused.
"Wait, move to end it? How?"
Kat shrugged.
"Just...want to change back. It's not complicated."
"Well, yeah, but that's not how it works in the stories, you can't just DECIDE to stop being turned into an animal!"
Kat rolled her eyes genially.
"Like I told you, bull-brain, it's only a curse in the sense that it's from the curse class of spells. And even then it's considered a curse-enchantment and really has more in common with an enchantment. You don't need love's first kiss or tears of an angel or whatever to break it, because it's literally meant to be broken. You're still ontologically a human, so the universe would prefer you BE human. Path of least resistance, nothing fancy."
Dan made an appreciative noise.
"So...I could stay a bull for as long or as little time as I like?"
"Yep, which brings me to the one important piece of information: your changes are fed by accepting them. The more you act like a bull, the more you turn into one; but, 'act like a bull' can be deceiving a bit - it also responds to your personality traits that are more bullish."
"Like losing my temper," Dan said ruefully, but with a smile so Kat wouldn't worry.
"Exactly. But that means, for instance, that if you go out to eat and order a salad, the spell counts that the same as if you'd gone out to the lawn and chowed down on the grass."
Dan rubbed his stomach - he hadn't eaten since lunch.
"...Could I do that? Eat grass I mean?"
Kat shrugged.
"Well, humans can't digest it, so I wouldn't recommend it before-"
"UUUURP!" Dan belched, covering his mouth too late and blushing like a beet; Kat just smirked.
"...before your digestive tract changes, which seems to have happened in response to your *desire* to eat grass."
Dan felt his stomach churning and swelling.
"But I didn't desire it, I just asked!"
"Uh huh. You know the proof of your fib is literally growing in front of me, right?"
Inside, Dan's stomach was expanding rapidly, muscles and tissues of his organs flowing around. He quickly developed a bigger, paunchy gut, to hold his now four stomachs. With one final gurgle, it stopped; Dan's gut had doubled in size. Kat poked at it gingerly.
"Fascinating...it's like your muscles, growing in small first and then expanding as you do. A full grown bull would have a much larger one, but you'd know more about that than me."
Dan nodded, gently rubbing his belly. He licked his lips.
"Yeah...could you...can you...conjure some hay?"