“What the fuck have you done with my cousin?” Spenser yelled at the elderly vixen standing over the brown catfish that had once been Spenser.
It was almost 30 years to the day that dragon had teleported Callum into this world as infant wolf. Callum had initially been terrified – sure, he was glad that he wasn’t a female lizard anymore, but everyone and everything that he had ever known was suddenly gone. Still, his new life hadn’t been bad.
His new “dad” was Rodrigo, who had a list of titles so long that neither Rodrigo nor Callum had ever bothered to learn them. All that really mattered to either of them was the title that Rodrigo went by – Mayor of Diamond Hollow. In and of itself, the town wasn’t a particularly wealthy one, but they occupied a remote position along a well-traveled trade route, which was how Rodrigo had made his wealth. Banditry.
Rodrigo had raised Callum along with a cousin named Spenser. They’d both received martial training, and while Callum certainly took well enough to it, Rodrigo had kidnapped a tutor for him to make sure that Callum would have the skills and knowledge necessary to one day take over running this town.
Spenser, on the other hand, had been given “control” over the town guard. Though, in truth, Spenser was captain in name only. It hadn’t taken Callum long to figure out that, for all his physical prowess, Spenser had a tendency to be headstrong and foolish. Still, the arrangement worked out. Callum led the guard from the rear, while Spenser took all of the risk – and blame – for the guards’ actions.
Callum’s old life was so long ago that it felt like a distant dream. And besides, that life had sucked. Now he had a beautiful wife, a nice house, an easy job, a guard full of wolves who would die for him, and a lumbermill full of lizardmen that were willing slaves. It had all been perfect, all up until today.
Now, as the small brown fish lay on its side, gulping at the air, Spenser’s rashness had come back to bite them both in the ass. Rodrigo had warned them that there was a soul magic user in this caravan, and he’d given them each an anti-magic ring to protect them.
“I don’t need a ring to deal with some fire slinger!” Spenser had said as they sat in Callum’s house, tossing it on a nearby shelf.
Callum wasn’t so sure. While he doubted that there was anyone powerful in what was an otherwise unremarkable caravan, why take the risk? He’d put the ring on, and as it absorbed the old vixen’s spell, Callum knew just how easily he could have ended up being forced to crawl out of this on his belly.
Callum stared across the field at the vixen, while the other fox and his friends ran off into the forest.
“You know they’re just running to an even worse fate.” Callum said coldly, “if they had given up, I would have just transformed them into my house servants.”
“You wouldn’t get the chance,” the vixen snarled, “and I don’t want one of your men accidentally putting an arrow into them. That fox has some potential and I don’t want to see it wasted here.”
“You’d rather it be wasted in the forest?” Callum replied in a mocking tone, “they’re just going to get caught by our rangers. The only potential they have now is cutting down trees for the mill.”
Callum noticed the vixen staring at his ring, before she looked back up to him and said, “that’s a very powerful ring you have there, bandit, whose grave did you steal it from?”
“This ring isn’t stolen, witch!” Callum spit on the ground, “it was forged by my family hundreds of years ago. It kept my ancestors safe from the monsters they fought, just like it will keep me safe from you!”
Callum didn’t wait for the vixen’s reply, instead charging straight at her with his sword held over his shoulder. As Callum closed the distance, the vixen backed up, as though pondering the situation. She’d seemed rather cocky at first, but something about his family creating the ring had caused a change in her – like she wasn’t sure how much of a threat he was.
And while the vixen pondered her situation, Callum closed to striking distance and brought his sword down straight towards her right shoulder. Callum felt so confident. He knew how dangerous this vixen could be, but his ring had protected him and she’d waited too long. Now, with his sword flying down towards her shoulder, there was nowhere for her to go and nothing for her to do other than-
Callum’s sword slashed through empty air and he felt himself begin to lose his balance. He’d put everything into this slash, fully expecting the sword stuck through the vixen’s body to support his weight, but in a flash, she’s moved a few feet to the side. Callum stuck his right foot forward, managing to catch himself, before springing out of the vixen’s reach and landing on his feet.
“How did you?” Callum cried in confusion, but the vixen didn’t respond. Instead, she just sat, unmoving, a few feet away from him.
Callum slashed again, but just like last time, her body seemed to teleport to the side at just the last moment. He kept slashing, over and over again, but each time she would teleport just barely far enough away to dodge his attack.
“Is this a teleport spell? How are you using magic?” Callum yelled out in confusion.
“Oh poor boy,” the vixen finally responded, “this isn’t magic at all. I seem to just be a little bit too fast for you.”
She looked directly into his eyes, and Callum could see a small, green fire burning in the back of her pupils, “That ring is an item that only a god could have forged. I had assumed that for you to have it, you must be at least level 18.”
“Level 18?” Callum said as his body dropped down, ready to charge again.
“Yes, I happen to have a particular insight as to how a person’s power can be measured.” The vixen replied, “20 is the highest level, but 18 is nothing to scoff at. If you had been level 18, well, I might have been in for a tough fight.”
She held a hand out in front of herself, “but I have a theory, and I’m willing to bet my life on it. Come, little wolf, hit me as hard as you can, I won’t dodge this time.”
Callum didn’t need the vixen’s invitation – he charged forward and slashed once again. His sword swung down towards her shoulder, and the closer it got, the more Callum realized that she might be crazy enough to keep her word. Callum could just imagine the feeling of it slicing through her flesh, the spray of blood hitting his muzzle, and then - *CLANK*
The sound of metal striking metal rang out across the battlefield as Callum’s sword ricocheted off the cloth robe that covered the vixen’s shoulder.
“What?”
Callum barely had time to comprehend what had happened before the vixen lunged forward, grabbing his arm.
“Poor little wolf, it seems you’re not strong enough to even break through my damage reduction.”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Callum tried to pull away, but no matter how much he struggled, he couldn’t break the vixen’s grip on his arm. He could only stand by and watch helplessly as she grabbed his ring with her other hand, before effortlessly removing it and tossing it on the ground next to him.
“Now then, wolf, you’re mine to do with as I please!” The vixen cackled as she shoved Callum back, causing him to fall to his butt.
She looked down at Callum, before pulling out a small pocket watch and holding it up for him to see.
“Take a look,” she said, “Time Stop.”
Callum watched as the hands on the watch suddenly teleported two hours forward. He looked around, but the battlefield scene around the ruined caravan looked the same as it had a few seconds ago. Then he looked down at his own body, but it too seemed unaffected. Still, Callum wasn’t a fool. This vixen had stopped time – for her – and she’d spent the last two hours doing something. Which meant she’d spent the last two hours doing something to him.
“What did you do to me?” Callum asked with a shaky voice.
The vixen tossed a small bell to the ground walked over to Callum. Bending down she put a thin finger under his chin and lifted his head until he was looking straight into her eyes.
“I suppose an introduction is in order, Callum,” she said, “I know everything about you, but you don’t know anything about me. My name is Madame Illusia, and while I might be one foxy lady, the truth is that I’m a hag. And not just any hag. I was old when that ring was made, and in my years I happen to have become quite good at a peculiar kind of magic.”
“Soul magic?” Callum asked.
“Oh, you’ve heard?” Illusia laughed, “yes soul magic little… what should I call you? Certainly not a wolf. But to answer your question, as far as you or even the universe itself is concerned, I did nothing more than take my time reading through your life. Its quite an interesting one I must say.”
Callum took another look at his body – still no changes – and tried to stand up, only for Illusia to push him back down.
“I wouldn’t stand if I was you Callum.” Illusia warned, “Tell me, what did you and your cousin have for dinner last night?”
Her strength was insane. Callum wasn’t the strongest person in the village, but he was a wolf, and he took good care of his body. Despite all of that, this elderly woman was able to hold him down with ease. He didn’t know what to do, but given the current circumstances, the last thing he wanted was to make her even more angry.
“We went to the inn…” Callum said in an attempt to defuse the situation.
“Oh poor thing, you didn’t eat the food your father made for you? Don’t you know why you were supposed to eat that food every night?”
Callum just stared at her blankly. He didn’t know. Rodrigo didn’t have many rules, but eating the nightly meal that he prepared was one. And it was a rule that Callum and Spenser had followed every night, until last night.
Illusia seemed to grow bored at the silence, “well then, let me tell you. You weren’t always a wolf Callum, you used to have a different life.”
“You saw that?” Callum asked, “you saw the other world? The dragon?”
“Other world?” Illusia responded, though it was her turn to sound confused, “All I saw was something about how you’d had another life before this one, though nothing about a dragon. How peculiar. Well, I suppose I left some of that intact, so you’ll probably keep the memories. Though with my new additions Callum the wolf may end up being life number three.”
“What are you-“ Callum asked, before feeling his voice get caught in his throat. He tried to force the rest of his sentence out, only to let out a loud, “mmmmooooo!”
Callum’s hands shot to his mouth, only to feel two hardening hooves smack into a widening muzzle.
Callum barely had time to comprehend what was going on when he felt an intense pressure growing in the front of his pants. Just as with his voice, Callum’s arms tried to shoot down to his crotch to see what was going on, but he found his elbows and shoulders shifting and his limbs suddenly felt awkward and clumsy – like they weren’t made to be moved like this.
Still, despite the unfamiliarity of his new, bovine forelegs, Callum managed to swing them down to where his cock had once been, only to feel them impact on something thick and fleshy. Callum heard a loud rip and, looking down, saw his pants burst apart as a red lump of flesh grew out of his crotch.
His hips shifted, pulling his legs further to the side, all while four small protrusions grew out of the still expanding lump of flesh. As he slowly ran his hooves along it, feeling a slight jiggling from inside, Callum realized he seen this exact same organ before – it was an udder. A cow’s udder.
The mooing, the thickening muzzle, the flattening ears, the black and white fur covering his body, the tasseled tail swishing behind him. The changes were coming on so fast that Callum didn’t have time to keep track of them of them all. It was so much to process that his mind began to shut down, and with one last burst of willpower managed to eek out:
“Please don’t turn mooo into a cow.”
“Hah!” Illusia broke into a fit of laughter, “oh Callum, but this is always the best part, the part when the person realizes that I haven’t turned them into anything at all, that this is how they’ve always been and they’re just returning to the body they were born in.”
Callum sat there, his new body rapidly bulking out to the size of a fully grown dairy cow, when new memories began to fill his mind. She remembered a field. She remembered eating grass, chewing her cud, pissing, and shitting. She remembered a calf sucking on her udder. She remembered how sore it had felt, and the immense relief as the calf drank her empty.
But the memories were so fragmentary. They weren’t like her human or wolf memories – days bled into each other and there were huge gaps. The calf, for example, she didn’t remember having sex or giving birth, but she remembered the calf suckling on her. Those were major events in her life, so how could she forget them?
She’d been stupid, she realized. Cows were stupid, and she had been a cow. That had all changed when the fat wolf, when Rodrigo, had fed her that potion. It made her smart. He told her that she was going to be an experiment and that if he was pleased with her, she would get a new, better life. A life where she could be smart. A life where she could mean something. A life that wouldn’t end with her on someone’s dinner plate.
Then he’d given her another potion. She’d shrunk down, changed genders, turned into anthro-wolf cub. And then she forgot being a cow. Until now.
Callum looked at the small brown catfish, still gulping air a few feet away. Rodrigo’s potion was wearing off on her, just as it had on Spenser a few minutes before. And as the potion went away, the memories of her old cow life came back too – or at least what little she could remember from before she’d drank the intelligence potion.
“Mooooo…” Callum lowed at Illusia, her fear filled eyes staring into Illusia’s as she begged for help. But the gaze that met Callum was anything but merciful.
“Its always amusing when a man finds out they were born a woman or vice versa,” Illusia mocked, “there’s always a distinct terror as they realize that they’re losing more than their species. And it always seems that gender is the more important of the two. I, personally, would think it would be a relief to be back in my ‘original’ body!”
Callum the milk cow was sitting on her butt, tail thrashing back and forth in the mud behind her. In between her spread legs, a massive red udder rested on the ground below her. It was an awkward, uncomfortable position for her huge body, and she was forced to lean over onto her front hooves, which caused her chest press down and put pressure on her already sore udder.
Illusia reached down, grabbing one of Callum’s teats in her fingers. She gave a quick tug, and a stream of warm milk spurted out across the ground in front of Callum.
With her new, expanded field of vision, Callum could see the remaining bandits running away, staring at her in horror as they did so. It was humiliating. She was supposed to be the heir to this city, to Rodrigo’s fortune. And now she was a cow. A fat cow laying in a muddy field, being milked by an old hag for her amusement.
Then a thought hit her – Rodrigo’s potion had made her forget being a cow, and he had never told either her or Spenser that he was continuing to dose them every night. When Rodrigo died…
Was Rodrigo really planning on keeping her as his heir? He could have dosed her enough to permanently turn her into a wolf at any time, so why limit the dose to something that would never become permanent? All of this. Her “new” body, her “old” life as a cow. Hell, even her “old” life as a wolf. It was just too much for the cow to process at once.
Callum looked up into Illusia’s eyes and let out a low, pitiful moo.
“I hope you know that cows are like any other mammal. They don’t lactate unless…” Illusia trailed off as Callum did her best to look down at her own stomach.
“You can feel it, can’t you?” Illusia said in a quiet, deep tone.
And the worst part about it was that Callum could. As much pressure as there was in her udder, there was even more coming from the portion of her abdomen just above that. And then she felt something kick up into the bottom of her spine. She didn’t need Illusia to tell her what it was, she knew.
“You know what it was like the last time,” Illusia said with the same cold tone as before, “you remember how big that bull was, how much you had to struggle to get his calf out. Its going to be just as bad this time.”
But Callum didn’t know. She searched her memories, and while she could remember bits and pieces of the calf nursing, she couldn’t remember anything about how that calf had gotten into or out of her. And it was the same with this one. She was very vaguely aware that there was a calf inside of her, but that was it. Looking up at Illusia, Callum just shook her head, with fear evident in her eyes.
“Oh?” Illusia wondered, “really? You can’t? It certainly seemed to be a notable experience in your backstory. I suppose you did have an intelligence of 1 at the time though.”
Illusia laughed, “well, you still have another month or so until you’ll be finding out. That bull was so big, a real champion. Given your current intelligence, I suspect you’ll be remembering this one for quite some time.”
Illusia paused before a flash of realization hit her, “oh and don’t worry, the intelligence potions Rodrigo gave to you and Spenser were permanent. You’re going to be spending the rest of your life as a cow, but you’ll have your wolf intelligence for the duration of it.”
Pointing towards the fish, Illusia said, “and you’re a bit more fortunate than him, if he doesn’t get to water soon he’ll die. You might want to do something about that.”
Realizing that Illusia intended to let her leave, Callum got up on all fours, staring at Spenser the entire time. Despite his glassy eyes and emotionless face, Callum could tell that he was looking at her, doing everything that he could to beg her to take him to water. She walked past Illusia, and lowered her head, carefully picking the fish up between blunt teeth.
Fish in mouth, Callum began walking into the forest. There was a small pond nearby that she knew about, and while the walk was short, the feeling of the sore udder bouncing back and forth underneath her was a constant distraction.
And it was more than that – every kick from the calf inside of her and every slosh in her milk strained udder caused her body to involuntarily twitch in discomfort. She wanted to bite down and grit her teeth, but the small, weak fish in her mouth would be crushed if she did so.
That wasn’t just any fish, she thought to herself, that was Spenser, her cousin. Perhaps they weren’t biological cousins anymore, and perhaps they never had been. But they’d grown up together, played together, ate together, drank together, robbed together. Even if their shared heritage consisted solely of the potion they’d unknowingly consumed every night, they were still family. And Callum wasn’t going to let his cousin die.
Finding the pond, Callum bent down and placed Spenser inside of it, before opening her mouth and letting him go. He immediately jutted out into the water, swimming in a circle as the cool water oxygenated his body. When he was done, he swam back over to her.
The new cow and catfish just sat there for a few minutes, staring at each other. Neither was capable of talking in their new bodies, but they didn’t have to. They both now knew that the lives they had been living was all a thinly crafted lie, and they both knew what was ahead of them.
The calf squirmed in Callum’s belly, and a quick kick into the back of her udder reminded her of how full and sore it was. As much as she wanted to stay with Spenser, she knew she needed to get milked.
“Mrrroooo…” Callum lowed at the fish, trying to tell him not to go too far – that she would try to come back and see if she couldn’t move him somewhere better. She didn’t know if he understood. She didn’t even know if fish could hear. But there was nothing more she could do, so tail swishing and udder swaying, Callum walked back towards the road in the hope that she could find someone to help milk her.