Ichor had gone to sleep ordinary.
Ichor woke up as a fantastic beast!
She only knew this because she had fallen asleep looking at the stars from her bed of grass and when she woke, the world seemed a bit stranger and harder to see as if her eyes had changed overnight. Not only were her eyes bigger, maybe even buggier, but she now saw everything in detailed pieces and blobs. It made her wonder… so she climbed to her feet and nearly toppled over because instead of four legs, she now had six! Four in the front and two in the back… hm, that’s interesting, she thought to herself as she gathered up this newest set of limbs and managed to hoist herself upright long enough to think she had mastered standing all over again.
More and more like father, she mused.
Not so ordinary after all! Her heart and her brain practically crowed with happiness because Ichor had always known that she was more than what she was - a small, thin, gold champagne colored foal. But the Mountain… ah, it had receded to become more like a memory and there must have been something that occurred when the Mountain moved back and became less imposing. Ichor felt like now she was as she had always known she was destined to be - a fantastic beast! Her affirmation of this came in the form of the delicate moth wings that fluttered against her sides, drawn close in some instinctive way that required little thought from her - more like reflex, she mused, still in awe of these new discoveries of herself. She had no idea that her skin had changed from soft fur to flaky scales still maintaining the gold champagne of her original color or that feathery antennae had sprouted up from her head.
She did not attempt to speak aloud, for even her tongue felt changed and different and little did she know it had changed and that it could seek out the nectar she’d need to supplement her grassy diet. Then she felt a fluttering about her neck that was unique in its own right and came not from her beautiful moth wings - gills! By gods! She was all manner of monstrous and beautiful as she had always known one of Elysium and Karris’ get ought to be! Ichor was unaware that she was the one laughing because even her laughter sounded odd in her own ears, not quite grown up but losing it’s childishness and different because of her new tongue. It was her realization of her own happy mad laughter that made her shut up and look around, not that she saw all that well now but it seemed she was alone…
Right?
Wrong.
Ichor was not as alone as she had hoped.
“Who goes there?” she barked out around her nectar-seeking tongue and the unfamiliar fluttering of her gills that had yet to subside since she had no need of them at the moment, they seemed more decorative than anything else. Besides, who ever heard of a moth breathing under water? How absurd! But absurd is exactly what Ichor was, beautifully so as she stood there on six legs, peering almost quizzically at whoever it was was nearby.
