She sat near a flat rock, studying the tops of her hands, their flesh contrasting against the stone’s rough surface. The left, jutting from a smear of blood on her wrist, was dark-skinned with longer fingers and enlarged joints compared to the other. She frowned, glancing at the right hand, looking unassumingly normal. She noticed before that it was far easier to transform the limbs than the entire body, yet for some strange reason the changes quickly reverted unless she continuously reinstated them. Just as she watched, the left hand curled down, requiring another reinforcement of its shape. She handled the occurrence with practiced ease, focusing on the right.
The lump in her throat was ever-present since the meeting with the druid. Her another unsuccessful attempt at embodiment into one of the forms she *felt* just at the edge of her power, diminished by his bond, was disrupted by the man’s power, despite her fight against his interference. Just thinking about it made her ill... The memory of the emotions that overcame her as her own flesh responded to his will was thwarting any other thought. She could still smell the stench of vomit from the few steps away, where the feeling was too much to contain within her. The growth at the end of her arms... She shuddered, swallowing the raising bile. The wave of nausea, passing through her body and mind, was just so alike... Her vivid memories came, of the feeling of wrongness in her lower body, so long ago, then the painful days when she ingested the herb... It was just the same. She could imagine she felt the poison seeping through her right arm, infecting her entire body, or perhaps just making it more malleable to his whims...
She bent forward, fighting not to throw up again. Her eyes fell on the third hand on the rock, still draining blood from within the severed wrist. Reaching for the bloodied Varanite knife with her left hand, she moved closer, rising to put weight on the blade.
She made grievous mistake with the man. She had so many opportunities to end his life before his powers had grown; yet she failed to do so. His control over appearances was, even then, so strong she felt certain degree of respect for him - the fool she was.
Now... The anger she felt sent the blade into her skin as her entire body trembled. Withdrawing it from the shallow cut, she waited out the spasms, her thoughts raging. In animal form, she had to continuously fight not to return to his side, the call was so strong. In monstrous shape, the tug was strong enough to require her constant attention at where she was headed. Even in her elven form the presence was still there, still drawing her in, even if to lesser degree.
She remembered the end of that meeting, when he called on powers that overcame her own will in both animal and bestial form. If it were not for the similarities in the situation that rang with echoes of the day she came to her powers, most likely she would be completely enslaved by the druid. It took all her will to turn away and run, as she knew for certain there was no facing the man, not when he had powers over her mind as well as her body...
Her fury flared, focused on the dulled edge of the knife in her replacement for the left hand. Gritting her teeth, she sent it plunging into her flesh, pressing with the whole weight of her body. At the same time, she willed the flesh and bone to soften, become for that brief moment more malleable.
With a sickening sound the blade went through her wrist, striking the stone underneath. She recoiled, the disruption in her attention causing the knife to fall from her withdrawing left hand, fading into the wrist as the will supporting its existence was refocused on the pulsing flow of blood from the right wrist.
Her healing powers were minimal when it came to helping others, yet she enough experience with regenerating damage to her own body to stop the bleeding. The long term regeneration would take several weeks, but it would be *her* hand again, not a growth budded from violation of her body.
For a moment the two bleeding hands, already shrunk as if life was seeped out of them, looked like the... thing... that the herb rid her off so many years ago. She turned to the side, heaving dryly, with little remaining in her stomach to give the release of expelled filth.
...
It took her several hours to recover enough to walk away from the secluded ravine, a few rags tied over the stumps of her wrists. The druid’s call was strong again, and she felt too weak to resist it in any other form.
The wolf padded into the clearing slowly, as if every move was straining it further. It paused at the edge of the forest slowly reclaiming the glade, pausing warily before progressing further after a moment of study of its surroundings. It paused again as it reached a dead and hollowed tree stump, gazing at it with surprising intelligence in its eyes.
Place… here… right…
The disheveled and matted fur of the animal seemed to explode in growth briefly before fading out, its form straightening up and flowing into a female figure covered with a patchwork assortment of rusted and worn-out armor pieces of Varanite origin. The various holes and cuts in their surfaces, bespeaking of the manner of their acquisitions, had been left unrepaired, as if their presence was more out of habit than practical necessity. The two mismatched armguards ended in two bundles of rags, too small to contain hands within their folds.
She shook hear head, stumbling to the side at the simple gesture. The mental transition had always been increasingly difficult with the time spent in a particular form, and she had been a wolf for…
She frowned, the passage of time lost for her. It had been long time, in any event, spent on seeking out something to replace the void left in her by the arch druid’s administration. In the end, her simplified animalistic mind brought her over here, to the overgrown ruins of the village…
She studied the tree stump, once a proud symbol of the community attempt to merge human ways with the elfish tradition, taking a few separate steps forward until the rag bundle on her outstretched hand touched the blackened, dead wood. The tiredness in her body, ever-present since that fateful meeting with Cirran, seemed to overwhelm her. She staggered forward, the poor excuse of an armor striking against the wood as she reeled to the side, sitting down heavily to the rasp sound of the shifting rusted plates, the thought that reverberated in her for so long finally surfacing,
Rest
With a soft sigh that one, not familiar with her personality, might have taken for a whimper, the elf curled up to the side of the stump in the lush grass covering the scars of the events so long ago. With one last effort, she reached within herself, willing her body into the shape held by her mind. This time, however, it was a shape which she barely touched, although quite frequently, on previous occasions. The brownish plates suddenly covered with bark – a thing frequent enough in the past. This time, however, her body melted along, slowly elongating upward, thinning while gaining height…
Spring ended, the soft caresses of the light rain showers touching the green leaves of the small tree to the side of the deteriorated stump. Summer came and passed, and no bloom or fruit adorned its branches. The fall began, adorning the ground with the colorful multitude of fallen leaves of the lone tree growing in the clearing, holding vigil for the forgotten events.
