Ch 3, Changes

The dark ominous clouds seemed to be centered above the high tower. Ravens and crows circled around it, some landing in their nests built in the lush ivy to prepare for the gathering storm. When Horse looked around and it was painfully clear that the sky behind them was comfortingly clear blue with white, fluffy clouds in cute shapes and a swallow drifted past in the direction they'd come, he tried to back around the bend again to get away from the suspicious-looking figure on the drawbridge. To get away from the entire, quite terrifying stronghold, really. He thought that the best thing they could do was to ride back to the last crossroads and pick another direction from there, but the Prince had other Plans! His hero instincts had been touched by the cry of alarm from the tower and he had not the sense, nor the capacity to resist.

When he noticed that Horse started backing away, Pollux ordered him to stop and then slapped him unceremoniously on the rump so that they started galloping straight towards the drawbridge. Another bolt of lightning hit a tall pine tree beside them, causing the terrified Horse to gallop even faster.

The figure only made careful, subtle moves with its fingers but the closer they got, the more the air around the figure started to shimmer with lively shapes and colours. Just when the Prince had  drawn his sword and they were 25 yards away, a beam of magick with all the colours of the rainbow shot out of the index fingers of  the figure, which were pointed directly at the quickly approaching yahoos.

There was a sound like *poff* and a big puff of amaranth-colored smoke, which when it dispersed revealed that Horse was still moving fast forward. The Prince on the other hand was laying upside-down on the ground with his four legs in different directions, shaking his head in confusion. It took a few seconds for the Horse to notice that he was running on two legs instead of four, he had feet instead of hooves (not to mention hands with the ability to grip things!) and that he was not moving forward as fast as he was used to. He then stopped and looked back at the Prince, who was still shaking his head, and completely forgot the cause of the transformation.

The Prince had a thick brown coat, a black, spiky mane and very, very long ears. He stopped shaking his head and rose unsteadily onto his scrawny legs and looked around. His ears twitched nervously when they registered the sound  his new hooves were making against the road. Horse felt sorry for the Prince in his unaccustomed shape and decided to give him a carrot to calm him down. The pack was on the ground close to them so it was easy to find. The issue was using these damned thumbs and the rest of the fingers to open the clasps. Horse solved the problem by opening the pack with his teeth, like he used to. The Prince was already used to acting like an ass, so it came quite naturally to him to happily munch the carrot offered to him and then think nothing at all about what had just happened.

When Horse was digging around in the pack to find the carrots, the Prince's  mirror, which accompanied him everywhere, fell out. He picked it up to put it back inside but hesitated when he saw his reflection. He'd seen it before in still water, but now it looked completely different of course.  His colors were the same, so he had very light blonde hair with shockingly pink stripes, very fair skin and calm brown eyes. The nose was a bit wide but his teeth were excellent. He was, quite simply, as beautiful as a human as he had been as a horse; easy on the eyes. When Horse finally tore his gaze away from the mirror he realized that the figure from the bridge was standing next to Pollux, feeding him sugar cubes. Then it turned towards him and with a smooth, flowing motion pulled back its hood.