Author's Preface
Étaoin didn't remember when she lost consciousness. She couldn't remember anything other than the pain. It seemed to be gone when she woke up, at least physically. Visions of her skin ripping and the pain that went with it were playing on loop in her mind's eye.
Physical eyes popped open one by one, all eight of them, as pained moans bubbled past her lips and up, the last bits of air left in her lungs. Fingers twitched, all twenty of them, as movement came to her arms.
In spite of everything she did and didn't understand, in spite of her inability to comprehend her own body in this moment, there was one word on her mind:
Kill.
Even when her vision found its odd focus and she regained purposeful motor control of her body, it was the only thought on her mind.
Kill.
She looked at the glass container she'd crawled out of. She'd grown. Her height had seemingly tripled. Any shreds of her clothes were found between the shreds of skin and viscera. Her braid rested nearby, kept there by the weight of the hair tie. Despite looking at the golden locks all she could see was red.
Kill.
She screamed again. Not for the phantom pains plaguing her thoughts like the scars they rightfully formed in her mind, but a guttural fury that nearly shook the walls of the grotto she'd been abandoned in.
That… dead. She would die. A slow, painful, torturous, excruciating, agonizing, harrowing, unbearable, tormenting death!
That witch was going to suffer the most painful death the once fae could think of.
Were she a fool she'd head back to the castle immediately.
Were she wise she'd cut her losses and abandon it all.
Instead a hand snatched the braid with unkempt fury and tied it around her waist. It was the last part of her still in one piece, even if it was no longer attached to her.
Then she properly noticed the insectoid abdomen sticking out of her lower back. A large stinger poked out the end. Now that she knew it was there she was immediately bodily aware of it. It twitched in response to her discomfort and she almost gagged.
Being hyper aware also drew her attention to the extra set of arms she gained, identical to her first set in every way. Trying to control them all gave her a headache, but she'd noticed them all responding in a non-intrusive way subconsciously. The structure of her arms hadn't changed too much even if much of the look did, fortunately. Well, save for the inconveniently hooked claws. Those would only get in the way, she could already tell.
Her feet weren't so lucky, warped into something digitigrade with claws for toes. It was a good thing that she was underwater so she didn't need to force herself to use them. Balancing with all these changes to her body would be a nightmare, she could barely remain upright as is.
Wanting to try moving around, she fluttered her wings. They made navigating the water so much easier. Despite looking ugly as sin, a weird mix between bat and insectoid thanks to the bat-like frame but insectoid membrane, they were quite functional due to their increase in size.
Étaoin paused. Many eyes blinked over and over as she forced her mind to focus.
Was she even a fae anymore? Her appearance has taken on multiple fiendish traits, like the bat-like wing structure and the horns on her head.
Then again, the insectoid parts of her were still reminiscent of the plane she once called home. Her hands moved to the braid that was attached to her head not that long ago. She grimaced when she noticed she couldn't even meaningfully feel the texture of her hair because of the hard chitin covering her fingers.
Allowing the hair to move between the plates near her joints did allow her to actually feel the strands, but didn't come close to comparing to how sensitive her skin used to be.
It was like a suit of armor had been welded to her body, and the only thing she could do was pray it would at least be functional as one.
Were she not underwater, she knew tears would be streaming down her face.
She had to get out of here.
But not before she got her worth out of this place. All of her preparation had been undone by her transformation and accompanying growth spurt. No matter how the painful memories haunted her, she wasn't leaving empty handed.
In spite of Cecaelya clearly trying to hide things from anyone who's stumble upon this place, she didn't hide them well enough from Étaoin. A multilayered illusion hid the back of the cave from those who found the first, with a small passage and a lever hiding behind the last wall. Étaoin guessed Cecaelya accessed it with a tentacle, but her arm was just barely long enough to reach it as well.
On the other side of the wall was positively a treasure trove of items. Many more of those shell shaped containers filled with all sorts of stuff. Spell components, she figured.
She swiped any of them that seemed valuable and light: a miscellany of gems, including a large pearl and a handful of small glass beads, a set of engraved bones, various powders and sands that glimmered like they didn't come from a trip to the beach. There was even a small figure of Cecaelya cast in ivory and decorated with gems. It was incredibly tacky and clearly valuable and Étaoin pocketed it for the sake of depriving the sea witch of it alone. Knowing she has likely padded her wallet by a few thousands of gold in materials did make her more confident, though.
She even found a few day's worth of food and a container full of iebba stones. Most of them were very well defined and as a result incredibly valuable.
If only the monstrous mermaid had weapons in here, but she was definitively someone who specialised in magic so it wasn't surprising those were hard to come by. She found what she presumed to be a utility knife, a fanciful blade that Étaoin gathered also served a ritualistic purpose. It was a little big for her to function as a dagger, but it would do as a makeshift scimitar in a pinch. It was certainly better than nothing.
She ransacked the place best she could, in every sense of the way. She gathered everything she seemed valuable, and destroyed everything else she could get her gross clawed hands on.
It felt good. It was cathartic to let her fury take over for a while and simply destroy things. Break the things around her like she had been broken. Even before that it felt good to focus on what was next and applying herself to achieving the goals she set out for herself, small as they might've been.
The potential sight of her own reflection might cause her heart to cease then and there, but she left that grotto with a newfound confidence and determination to succeed and accomplish her goal.
Revenge.