As you relax and your eyes begin to droop, your nose twitches and your ears flick a bit atop your head. You are suddenly aware of the myriad scents and sounds filling the badgers’ home; the acrid scent of drying paint, a light muskiness of the badgers’ shed fur, the sound of Felix turning a screwdriver to assemble a table upstairs. For a moment, it strikes you as odd that all these sensations seemed so much mofr vivid than usual, but just as you begin to ponder it you hear a pleasant voice calling to you.
“Benji? Fancy a spot of tea?” Asher asks in his charming accent. You open your eyes and see him holding a tray, atop which was a small ceramic teapot and a few small cookies. The scent of the tea tickles your nostrils even though Asher is all the way across the room, and you quickly sit up with a wide smile on your face, showing off about half an inch of your long incisors.
“It smells great, Asher!” you reply happily as Asher takes a seat across from you, placing the tray on the coffee table between you and begins to pour a cup of tea for you. You’d never been the type of guy to go for tea (you were more of a soda and energy drink sort), but for some reason the hot, herbal liquid in front of you was making your mouth water.
“I didn’t bring much along from London, but I couldn’t bear to be without a proper cup of tea,” Asher says cheerfully as he pours himself a cup and takes a sip. “Uncle Felix thinks it was a waste of space to pack it, but what would an American Badger know about good British tea, hmm?”
He chuckles mischievously, his eyes looking up and down your face with an odd expression. Without really knowing why, you join in with a light giggle of your own and raise the teacup to your lips and take a sip. As the smooth flavor spreads across your tongue, you feel an odd sensation in your mouth as your teeth begin to sharpen and rearrange themselves to fit your lengthening muzzle, while a coating of fur starts to sprout along your cheeks before slowly spreading along your face in black and white stripes so precise they looked like they were drawn in with a ruler.
“A lovely cup, Asher. Jolly good to have some tea after working hard,” you say, trying to ignore the odd feeling in your mouth and on your face. But then, you frown for a moment, wondering why you’d chosen that exact way of saying it. You cough quietly to clear your throat, then say, “Err, I mean, it’s really tasty. Thanks…”
“No thanks required, Benji,” Asher replies fondly. He smoothly rises from his seat and moves over to sit next to you on the couch, the paws on his feet gently resting next to yours as he looks deeply into your eyes. He took another sip of tea, asking, “So… Where are you from, my friend?”
“F-from? I-I’m from next door, remember?” you respond with confusion, unable to look away from Benji’s gentle yet oddly intense stare. You feel your toes curl, the bare claws clicking against the hard wood, while Asher reaches one of his paws over and lays it on your shoulder. Beneath his touch, you feel a slight itch as more fur starts to poke up from your skin and slowly coat your arms and shoulder before moving in toward your chest, thick and gray and a bit stuffy underneath your warm shirt.
“No, no. I mean where did you come from before you moved here,” Asher says soothingly. “There aren’t many European badgers here in America, after all…”
“I-I’m not a…” you start to argue, but the odd fuzziness starts to descend on your mind again. What Asher’s saying does make sense, at least a little bit. “W-well, I suppose… London? I’m from London… I think...”
“Ah yes, I could tell from your accent,” Asher said with a light chuckle, and you vaguely begin to notice the slightly posh, British tones that had been sneaking their way into your previously American accent.
“Asher, w-what’s happening… I don’t know if-” you start to protest, but Asher just smiles and puts one of his clawed fingers against your muzzle to silence you.
“Hush, Benji. Just drink your tea and relax… Don’t want it to go cold, do we?” he says quietly, watching with a smile as your ears finish migrating all the way to the top of your head and round out into proper badger ears, each gaining a tuft of soft black and white fur. From the spot where his claw touched your lips, long and wiry whiskers begin to sprout and lengthen, twitching as you nervously raise the teacup to your mouth. Suddenly, the cup slips in your hands as they start to shift in shape, and you spill the (luckily slightly cooled) tea all down the front of your shirt and across the front of your pants.
“Oh, bother. Simply terrible…” Asher sighs as he wipes the front of your shirt with a tea towel. “Hmm, I suppose we might be able to find something that fits you. It just won’t do to have you wearing those soaked clothes…”
With that, he takes your paw in his own and gently pulls you deeper into the house, a broad grin spread across his furry muzzle...