“Shape!” Troy said as he focused on Rusty with the image of a German Shepard in his mind.
Nothing happened.
“Damn it,” Troy thought to himself. Now that Rusty was an inanimate object, he was no longer a valid target for spells from the Book of Beasts.
Troy was so fixated on Rusty that he didn’t notice as his orange and black stiped fur took on a more mottled brown color. Nor did he notice as his long, thin tail grew shorter while the fur began fluffing out. Or the fact that the room was slowly getting larger as Troy began to lose weight and shrink down from a tall, muscular anthro tiger to a size more appropriate for a 70 pound, 4 legged animal.
It was only when his knees reversed themselves, forcing him to fall on the floor while he lost grasp of the Book of Beasts as he landed on two newly forming paws, that Troy realized what was going on. Or just how far he had progressed into a feral German Shepard.
“Oh no!” Troy realized – without a valid target for the shape spell, the spell had chosen him instead. Since Rusty couldn’t turn into a German Shepard, he now was!
And if the recent experience of the Book of Transmutation’s owner was any guide, Troy wouldn’t be able to cast a reversing spell once he lost the ability to speak.
“Shay… ruff…”
“Ruff… ruff! Ruff?”
Troy’s attempt to reverse the shape spell was interrupted as his lips receded into a growing muzzle and his vocal cords simplified from those of a human to those of a mere dog. He’d only made it halfway through the spell before losing the ability for human speech.
The final changes finished up as his hips forced him into a quadrupedal stance while his cock was pulled up into a sheath that hung below his belly. Where mere seconds ago there was a strong anthro tiger now stood an identical copy of the feral German Shepard that Rusty had been turned into a few days ago.
Looking up at Rusty, still frozen in place, Troy realized the importance of fixing this situation – and fast.
He put all of his mental energy into his mouth. He moved his tongue in as human a way as he could. He scanned over his vocal cords and tried to remember how he used to move them as a human. He put everything he had into performing what would have previously been a trivial action – everything he could into saying the word shape.
But all that came out of his mouth was an awkward sounding bark, almost like how he would imagine a person would sound if they were trying to speak a language without understanding any of it.
Troy’s tail involuntarily dropped between his legs as the realization sank into him. He was a dog and Rusty was a taxidermy. All he could do now was bark and Rusty… well. Neither of them was in a position to fix this situation and the two of them were going to need to come to terms with what might be their new bodies for the foreseeable future.