It wasn’t supposed to go like this.
Emmeline and I were supposed to start a new life, safely plying our trade way from the scrutiny of our families. Me doing my little nothings that make people happy, and Emmeline directly making people happy by just being herself. She’s like the big sister I never had, except… well, she’s not actually my big sister. We’ve just been friends since childhood.
She definitely wasn’t supposed to be stolen away by some gods-damned bandits or raiders or whatever those “Saurs” are.
She’s been gone for a month.
The Guard Captain came back this week. The only one to return. Would that mean...
...no, I can not lose hope. Emmeline is alive, she has to be!
I tried to gather myself. Take a deep breath, Jennica. Deep breath, let it out. Breath, out.
Okay, back together. At least a bit.
I looked around the apartment that felt so big without Em filling the space by just being herself. She’s always so… present, and warm, and pleasant to be with.
The place was a mess, I had to admit. I wasn’t usually one for cleaning much, organized chaos was my way of making sense of either my crafting or my cooking. Still, avoiding thinking about why I needed to start cleaning, I did start at it.
I don’t know how long I just mindlessly tidied the place up. Time had started to lose all meaning for me lately. I was sure Rhask thought I was a wreck… which, to be fair, I was starting to be. Get yourself together, Jennica!
I didn’t really get myself together. Instead, I sat down on the bed and sighed hard.
I glanced out of the window. Sundown. Not sure if that even meant anything anymore. Probably not. Days and nights just blended together.
I started idly fiddling with one of my half-finished trinkets, this one a small piece that could fit in a pendant and make one feel luckier by seeing the good side. I had not been able to find it myself to finish it though, since… that definitely hadn’t been my mood lately. See, my crafting is very dependant - one could argue too dependant - on my own emotions and moods, and I can not really stretch too far outside of my own feelings or the trinkets become unstable.
As though to prove my point, I glanced at the dark red-black ‘rock’ that was the trinket I made when I first heard of the Captain coming back. Throw it in a room, and it would make everyone feel like they just lost a loved one. I… I was not very proud of that one, but it could still be useful when the Guard went out so I’d give it to them along with my other creations.
No way I could go myself to save Emmeline, even I can realize I’d just be a worthless liability in combat. So making things like that arrow-shield I made with Maybelline, or that one-time fog creator I accidentally made one morning.
My eyes wandered to my little shoulder bag. Where I kept a lot of my unfinished projects and other random stuff in case they became useful. I took a little glass vial in my hands.
Bright red liquid in that vial, swirling innocently. Strix had called it the healthiness potion, and even without looking at the mess that was our kitchen I knew I had been eating very badly if it all ever since Em got caught.
I had my doubts, but at this point I was ready for anything to slightly improve my situation. At least until I could finish creating my help for the Guard.
I took a swig.
It tasted like an odd mix of sweet and sour, making me gag a bit at first but… not bad, just weird. Like drinking a small dose of bad feelings followed by a load of good ones. Hard to explain. I shivered and let the vial down on the bed as my guts let out a gurgling noise of approval… or disapproval.
I did feel a bit more energized at least… a strong twitch in my tail, that things might just yet get better. Eventually.
I turned to pick back up the luck perception trinket, feeling suddenly like I might have what it takes to make it ‘tick’. Closing my eyes, I felt my way around the trinket’s magic, forming it into how I wanted it to work.
Relatively speaking, this trinket was easy. Almost just applying magical emotions to metal, no real switches or triggers to speak of. Didn’t even really need an active state… I wondered if it needed to be this big but continued my probing. The metal blending with my magic, eventually forming into that sweet spot where one could not tell where physical matter ends and magic begins.
...did I really need to make it this big? This was getting unwieldy, no one wants to carry a trinket the size of a football around.
I opened my eyes.
I then closed them, because I did not want to see what I was seeing. That definitely wasn’t happening.
...I carefully opened my eyes again.
...when did our bedroom get this big? For that matter, when did our bed get this big?
I then made the mistake of glancing at my hands. I let out a yelp, dropping the no-more-mere-trinket from my hands to the floor. I had claws! Sharp claws and… that felt so odd, an extra finger. I twiddled my fingers experimentally. Yep, they’re still mine. Do I dare the next step and look around?
I decided against such rash moves and closed my eyes again, taking a deep breath… upon which I realized I felt… lighter, a lot lighter, on my chest.
Opening my eyes again as another jolt of panic attempted to claw its way up me, I shuddered as I realized my breasts were effectively flat, covered in scales. And my pearly necklace in turn felt huge.
Wait, scales?
Daring to look further, seemed like my entire body had shrunk… seeing how my underwear was just loosely ‘around’ me instead of wrapping or hiding anything.
Squishing the brief bit of embarrassment about that, I continued my exploration. Claws, scales, size… I felt my tail twitch. Really felt it twitch. I looked over my shoulder, and at this point I admit I wasn’t even terribly surprised to see a thick, short scaly tail, way heavier than the one I had.
Panic and curiosity kept fighting for space in my head. I knew I was probably supposed to scream, but I pushed that aside as I experimentally twitched my legs out of the tangle that was my underpants, and… okay, more claws. How?
I looked around the room, feeling myself very small. I hopped down from the bed. I needed a mirror.
I almost stumbled to my face, badly misjudging the landing. Gathering myself and being glad no one was here to see this added embarrassment, I looked back at the bed… which was now almost up to my chest in height. Oh my.
Shaking my head to get myself moved from that brief reverie, I walked to our bedroom mirror.
Then, seeing myself, I finally screamed. Funny how one’s mind works in a panic, isn’t it?