[private] hope is a mistake.

[rend]

and i scream as loud as anyone

When her eyes open, her eyes have changed. The rounded pupils of prey animals have been traded for thin slits like a crocodile. She stares for a while, her gaze locked on Cressida with sweat coating her skin still. Slowly, carefully, she rises onto her new talons and winces at the ache of resting her weight on them. This body is stronger and yet it hurts down to the marrow.

Her jaws part to speak until her tongue finds the razor edge of her new teeth. All sorts of thoughts come gurgling up into her mind as she tries so desperately to understand. She sways, catches herself, and stumbles closer to the stranger.

“I.. don’t know,” she finally whispers. Her tail sways back and forth until a bony spike catches in a tangle of dry grasses. Rend wonders what she looks like now, if there is anything left of the beautiful face her mother had given her at birth. Between the horns and the raised scales, she imagines she must be awful to look at. The thought sends a trail of her tears dripping down her cheeks, where they fall and sizzle into the dirt.

“Mostly, I am terrified.”

but when asked to make a point I tend to whisper

REND

@cressida