Jasper Auden

“You let your tea sit all day? It looks cold.” Jasper wondered aloud as he hovered nearby, monitoring the engineer's quiet focus on the watch like a nervous family member in a hospital waiting room. He quashed the urge to ask if 'it was okay.' Instead, he went about the kitchen, making a fresh pot for both of them. Something to quell his mind.

As much trust as he had in the eccentric mechanic, he couldn't help but worry they might be destroying a priceless heirloom, or maybe there was a reason it was never fixed. It seemed important, and his father certainly didn't lack the means. 'Perhaps he became busy and forgot,' Jasper thought to himself as he poured water from the singing kettle into two cups.

He aimed to be a gentleman, a perfect guest, to ignore the dust and clutter because it was not his business, but whilst he carried the tea service into the shop area, he heard a click. The engineer made an unusual expression — shock. And, just then, a bolt of hairy electricity arced from the watch to Jasper's chest.

He had no time to utter anything in surprise. The cups shattered, tea boiled off the wooden floorboards, and Jasper fell screaming to the ground. He tried to catch himself on the table, pulling at half-finished machines that toppled down over him. A canvas drop-cloth followed, mercifully settling over his middle as his muscles bulged and split his finely tailored outfit. Good wool and silk frayed and burst around tufts of gray fur. He yelled out, cursing and grabbing his head when bull horns sprouted and curled forward into menacing points. He grew upward and outward, his face altered completely into a bull-like snout, his legs shifted with pops and cracks, his shoes tore off around his huge, black hooves, until finally... it stopped. Jasper — what became of him — was left panting and groaning on the floor. When his newly orange eyes sprung open to observe his beastial hand held before his face, it was with near cross-eyed diabelief.

“What...” Even his voice was different, rougher and deeper. “What happened?”