Most assuredly! Hop up on my back!
“Um—”
The horse cloak dove beneath him, and Ambrose-the-Badger fell onto his back as they careened through the woods.
On the one hand, being turned into a creature was a bit of a revelation. He had no idea how many smells actually existed in the world, but his finely honed badger senses meant that he could parse out everything. He could taste the sunlight spreading across a fallen leaf, hear the exhale of an uncurling root deep beneath him, and even see a dewdrop clinging to an apple blossom in all its glorious, prismatic detail.
All of which meant there was no way in the world that he could miss Imelda screeching on the other side of the orchard.
Ambrose and the horse cloak had zoomed back toward the ruined courtyard just in time to see Imelda kissing him. Wait. No. KissingCharming. For a moment, the visual was just too…strange. Is that what it would look like to kiss her? Would her eyes flutter shut like that? Why did thatbadgerget to wear his form and suddenly know what it felt like to sink his fingers through her hair? Heat clenched in his belly.
Ambrose growled.
“I think thehellnot.”
Unfortunately, in badger form, it just sounded like more squeaking.
***
Imelda shoved Charming-Turned-Ambrose away. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Charming patted his shirtsleeves and plucked at his pants.
He muttered to himself. “Huh, this ain’t working quite like I imagined. But I did all the right stuff. I ate the fruit. I made the guy eat the fruit. I’ve kissed the princess. What am I getting wrong here?”
Imelda slapped him (well, nothimbut certainly his face), and Charming winced out of instinct. “Are you out of your mind, Ambrose?”
“I’m simply, er, caught by my affection. Overwhelmed by my sudden infatuation for you all over again, my darling—”
Ambrose-the-Badger scraped his back paws across the horse cloak and then squeaked out:
“CHARGE!”
The horse cloak sailed into the air, and Ambrose leapt off, catching onto Charming’s belt loops with his sharp nails and scuttling up his body. Imelda screamed. Charming flung him off. Ambrose felt a terrible weightlessness gripping his stomach as he soared over a plum tree and crashed against a half-broken rock wall.
Imelda stumbled backward.
“Shall we, my love?” said Charming in an oily voice. “It doesn’t do for husbands and wives to fight. Let’s forget all about this mess.”
Ambrose-the-Badger stirred weakly from his position by the rock wall. Even his near-perfect creature vision felt stilted and sluggish. And yet his eyes clapped on the glinting golden chain around Charming’s neck.
He tried to take a step forward, but the whole world seemed to bleed out around the edges. His body hurt, and his tail hung limply at his side. He lifted his head. Imelda loomed over him like a giantess.
“Ambrose?”
This close, her voice sounded like a thousand gongs ringing in his ear.
“Yes, it’s me!”
More irate squeaks ensued.
“That apple he ate cured him of his need for human speech, my darling wife. Pay no mind to him, and let’s be on our way back home.”
Imelda froze. She fixed Ambrose-the-Badger with a hard stare. He couldn’t be sure what she meant by that glance. Imelda turned back around slowly.
At her feet, the horse cloak tried to roll around her ankles, as if nagging eagerly for her attention.
“Husband, is it?”
