(Originally written on March 26, 2024.)

“No! You don’t understand! I’m cursed to become a terrible beast when the moon is full like this!”

“I don’t believe you~”

She kept responding that way, with her cutesie, teasing tone. Edward had always been open about his lycanthropy, and he wasn’t a dangerous werewolf, keeping his mind through the transformation, but even so his feelings about the whole ordeal were mixed at best. On the one hand it was thrilling… but it was also quite unbecoming of a noble such as himself. Playing it up as a terrible curse was the only way Edward could get it to make sense in his brain with the rest of the life he’d lived. Plus, he didn’t want to scare his darling Samantha by having her witness his horrible changes!

But why did she not believe him? He’d never heard of any conspiracy theories among the commoners questioning the validity of lycanthropy. There were all kinds of magical phenomena that humanity didn’t understand. Did Samantha not believe in dragons, either? Magnets? Fairies? She didn’t seem like the type!

“No… I-it’s too late… I’m so sorry, Samantha…!” She rolled her eyes and giggled as Edward stood up shakily, a noticeable gray sheen on his chest as the hairs there thickened into fur. With a choked sob, he dramatically grabbed at his shirt, so as to tear it apart and make room for his soon-to-be growing body…

Only for his fingers to squiiiiiiish against his chest.

“H-huh?” His exaggerated terror vanished in an instant as he looked down to his hands, confused as to why they lacked the ability to grab his shirt. His fingers looked appropriately padded and swollen, but… something about them was still off. They almost didn’t look real… and… were those… “Seams…?”

Samantha was clearly delighted, trying her best to not burst out into a fit of giggling. “Those don’t look all that fearsome to me!”

Edward yelped as his hands puffed up, their exaggerated proportions making them difficult, though not impossible, to move. “W-what is the meaning of this!?” he cried, as the seams began to race up the sides of his arms, bringing a wave of swelling and fur in their wake. The changes ran up under his sleeves, which were quickly beginning to strain from his increasing volume… but their pressure also compressed him a great deal. It really didn’t feel so bad… but he was still concerned!

“You told me that you were going to turn into a terrible beast,” Samantha teased, “and I told you that I didn’t believe you! And it looks like I was right~” She gave Edward’s arm a squeeze, and he could definitely tell that there was no bone inside. “In fact, you look more like a child’s plaything than a monster! Teehee~”

Too flabbergasted to get the hint that maybe, just maybe, Samantha knew more than she was letting on, Edward recoiled from her loving touch and promptly fell on his ass, which he noticed was, of course, becoming unusually squishy beneath him. Fluff poured into his thighs instead of the usual muscle mass, and the garments constraining his body finally began to snap apart, the furry fabric underneath bulging through the gaps wherever possible. Without a spine to lengthen, his tail merely inflated into being, bursting through the seat of his pants with very comedic timing. “But h-how is thisth pbossibhhhhghhhhmmmffh!”

“Shhhhhhhh… I’ve been told it feels quite intense, so I’ll wait until it’s done before I explain…” she cooed, fingers brushing over the man’s pudging cheeks and coming to rest on his thinning lips, his noble, beautiful face pushing forward into a muzzle bearing a ridiculous smile. Normally his teeth were the thing he found most disgusting and fearsome about his werewolf form, but now they were merely stitched-on decorations. Edward couldn’t help but calm down thanks to the way Samantha comforted him, and the changes to his head finally caught up to those in his ears (when had those transformed? He hand’t even noticed!), leaving him a 7-foot-tall, animate werewolf plush. One glance in the mirror showed him just how silly he truly looked… and just how little his girlfriend seemed to mind, instead resting against him like she always did, the two of them perfectly vulnerable and perfectly safe…

“Between the two of us… you’re not the only cursed one…” she explained. “Well, maybe cursed isn’t the right word for my case…” Might not be the right word for yours either! she mused. “… but, it’s an affliction I have, and it’s magical in nature.” Edward couldn’t really respond, or comment, or even change his facial expression… but Samantha could tell that he was in a state of most serene listening, even past that goofy smile. “When I was little, my parents arranged for a spell to be put on me. I was only a child, so I didn’t really have the capacity to refuse… but now, thanks to that spell, whenever someone near me transforms via magic, they become a plush-like version of whatever their original target form would’ve been. As long as I’m near you when the moon is full, you’ll become like this instead of a flesh-and-blood werewolf. Would you like that?” She booped his nose and giggled, knowing full well that he couldn’t answer her, though she supposed he could nod or shake his head. He simply gave a small shrug instead. It really wasn’t so bad…

“I think they meant to weaponize me,” Samantha said with a sigh. “Something about my ‘innocence’ made it particularly easy to get this spell to work. But they never ended up making use of it. Guess those druids weren’t nearly as scary as they thought…” That they’d meant to destroy the druids was news to Edward. The story the public knew was that things had resolved peacefully, and with little to no hardship. But to hide a dagger behind your back making such negotiations in case anything went wrong, and for that dagger to be a repurposed little girl… much less your own daughter…! It was simply—

“Oh well. Now I just have this cute curse thing. It’s funny to surprise people with, like I did tonight, and the results are comfy and snuggly… so I try to not get too bent up about it. My parents already give me plenty of other reasons to not like talking to them very much, anyways.” Edward, astonished, pondered this attitude of hers. The principal of her curse, its shameful and disgusting origin, rooted in fear and manipulation and exploitation… Why should it keep her from enjoying the result? She wasn’t the one to blame for her condition, and the condition itself caused no problems, so why should she suffer from the shame or regret of its conception?

His own lycanthropy wasn’t a perfect match, but it was similar enough in some ways. It wasn’t his fault he was a werewolf, and it wasn’t a problem for anyone else that he was a werewolf, so why should the mere connotation of “becoming a terrible beast” bring him shame? One could look at the current state of things as a tragedy, a man cursed to look like a monster and a woman whose own parents made her into a weapon, only to never even use her. How they must huddle together to survive this world that would dehumanize them so!

Or, they could see two lovers snuggling, the odd quirks of their lives granting one of them the squishy, comfortable form of a giant stuffed animal. An odd result, to be sure, but a very welcome one.