It was a searing pain. The kind that is so far just above the threshold of what you can stand that your body and mind just pretend it isn’t there, that it ISN’T happening. Or if they acknowledge that it is in fact happening at all, it’s as if it’s happening to someone else and you are watching them from afar. Your body and mind do this for you because they are looking out for you, they like you and they most of all don’t want you to go mad.  But it’s hard because there is so much screaming. And the screaming won’t stop. It just get’s louder and louder. And soon, the thing you want more than anything is for that infernal screaming to stop so you can think a rational thought again. But by then it’s too late and you realize that the person who has been screaming this whole time is you.

Eydva realized she was screaming, and then everything that was happening to her flooded back into her consciousness all at once.

Heat searing into her bones.

The purple light intensified and pulsed so brightly around her that she could barely see through her eyes, squinted closed with pain. She felt full, bursting... so much pressure, building inside of her, pushing outwards on her skin from all directions. She had to stretch out… make herself longer to relieve the pressure somehow. The unbearable heat expanding outward to her skin… which seemed to soften and become more flexible...

Her body rose and slowly rotated backward till she was horizontal with the ground, which lay so many feet below.  She no longer felt as if she was hanging, but somehow supported from underneath. It was a small comfort amid the explosions of pain coursing through her body. She began to writhe, burning, stinging, stretching. Moving seemed to ease the pain… if not almost feel good.

The heat expanded again within in her… the pressure rising with it.  Then suddenly she was terrified to see and feel tiny blackish-purple flames erupt from her skin in various places around her body. The flames seared at her. But her skin did not burn. It darkened… her clothes, however, began to smolder, and then erupted into a conflagration of dark purple flames and within seconds had incinerated into ash, and then the ash had disintegrated altogether, leaving behind nothing but a soft gray haze that was snatched away in the wind. Somewhere deep inside, the schoolgirl, the proper member of society side of her... she was mortified to be suspended naked in mid air in the woods. writhing in flame. But NAKED was so far down the list of things of horrible things happening to her in that thought, that it almost didn’t matter.

The dark fire continued to lick across her body in waves and rivulets of tiny purple flames that were somehow tickling and burning at the same time. And everywhere the flames touched, her skin darkened.  Down her legs, her arms, her toes and fingers. Up her back, across her belly... between her legs and up her thighs, till she had to bite her lip to keep from calling out as as it swarmed across her nether regions, the little curls of flame an impossible mix of pain and pleasure seeping into every crevice…

The heat was excruciating as it passed over her skin, but it left behind a feeling of warmth and tingling, and higher sensitivity, as if the outer layer had been peeled away to reveal new, shiny skin underneath. The flames moved upward, over her small breasts, her hands instinctively cupping her breasts to protect her nipples as the flames licked at them like huge candle wicks, before moving upward across her chest to her neck. Her panic was rising again as she felt the fire slipping up over her chin… her mouth.. and finally squeezing her eyes shut as tightly as she could, so it would pass over them unscathed. But she gasped as the fire seeped through her shut eyelids and the flames seemed to fill not just her eyes, but her entire skull. She felt the fire crawl upward on her face over her brows and forehead and then to her hair. Her hair did not burn.  Her nostrils did not fill with the familiar scent of singed hair. Her hair BECAME the flame, only darker, and more crimson, as it grew in size and volume. It lengthened and become fuller and thicker, till soon it was all around her, wreathing her entire form in a halo of fire.

Suddenly, just as she thought the fire in her hair was subsiding, her bones alit anew with searing flames... even worse than before, even though she had suspected that to be impossible. She had been very wrong. She writhed uncontrollably with the pain… trying to move, to stretch, anything to alleviate it. She arched her back and reached high above herself with outstretched fingers, grasping, clawing at the air itself, begging the sky, the clouds, the trees..the snow… anything… for relief.  She extended her longs legs, toes curled, alternating between them, bringing her knees up and then stiffening out as straight as she could, trying to find a way to bring relief to the flames within her body. The fire grew inside again… this time to bursting (how was this not done yet!?)… she was stretching so far she thought her limbs would dislocate, and then suddenly, simply, they expanded.

Her arms felt almost like they were being pulled by invisible forces, her legs the same. She could feel them elongate, bones cracking as the joints were dislocated, the fire inside dancing across the gaps, knitting them back together deftly with whatever Magicka powered them. She cried out as they broke and coalesced once more, her emotions running the entire spectrum from pain, paranoia, fear, finally relief... only to come back again as another joint separated and conjoined. This lasted for what felt like hours, as her body pulled and stretched. Each joint, each vertebrae, every tiny bone that made her, was destroyed and created anew.

Just when she thought she couldn’t take another moment, she felt the invisible hands, the pulling forces, whatever it was that held her aloft… she felt it disengage from her limbs. It was no longer stretching her. Instead it crawled along her skin, invisible hands atop her body, dancing flames within her, mimicking their motions. The feeling slid up her legs, down her forearms. Her newly formed muscles contracted under her skin, rippling with a newfound power. She cried out softly as the warmth spread further, and higher, engulfing her nethers, pulling at her belly button. She was growing from within now. There was no popping of bones or cracking of joints, just a fullness… a swelling sensation in her stomach, between her legs. She could feel a throbbing, as blood hungrily coursed in places that had never existed before.  It coursed outward and down, filling her legs, which were no longer the beanpole stilts she stood on before. They were still long, longer even than before, but they were perfectly sculpted and shaped, full and curvy, but not too thick, with taut powerful muscles that were still very womanly and attractive.  Her hips, too, expanded to fill and cover her stretched pelvis.  They were wide and full and sinuous.  Gone too was her flat backside, replaced with generous, fully rounded curves, the perfect mix of soft on top and firm muscle underneath.

Her breasts swelled, sparks and flames dancing across the taut skin. She could feel their weight, their heaviness, unlike her breasts from before, these were full and shapely. She was too afraid to look down at her chest at first.. She reached down and cupped a breast tentatively, and even though her fear was lurking, right under the surface… the schoolgirl giddiness she felt at finally having beautiful, womanly breasts overrode it. She gently rolled one of her large fat nipples between her fingers and gasped softly. They were so sensitive… responsive to her touch  hardening almost instantly.  She’d heard the phrase “you could put an eye out” before, but if she wasn’t careful with these things she might poke a hole in a stone wall!

Clavicus had held up his end.  Even still hanging in midair as she was.. she knew she was more woman now than she had ever dreamed of being, more beautiful than ANY woman she had ever seen!  But much to her dismay..the little purple flames did not subside.  The burning began to intensify once more.  The flames increasing in power again as they moved over her new body coalescing toward the tips of her fingers..her toes.. Her face and somewhere behind her..?

The flames grew and grew around her.. The heat searing.. The purple light pulsing so brightly she had to close her eyes again.  There was a loud humming noise and the air felt thick and heavy around her, laden with ancient power. It pulsed in sequence with the flames, and the pulses began to increase in frequency.. The heat and light and sound became a roaring tempest around her filling up all her senses, pounding at her, shaking her. Within the roaring flames she heard strange voices, deep and guttural. They were chanting.  At first it was some strange ancient tongue she vaguely recalled but could not understand..but as the chanting increased in volume and speed the strange words took shape in her mind.  

By Ash and Stone!  through Blood and Flame!  Their Will is Ours...  Their hands are We...

The world was spinning… her face was on fire.  She felt like her skull was splitting. Her extremities were turning to red-hot liquid metal, and something no less painful, but even more unnerving, was happening to her posterior.

By Star and Moon!  through Deep and Dark!  Their Will is Ours...  Their hands are We...

She started to sob… to wail…  to shriek. She cried out for death… she no longer wanted this!  It wasn’t worth it! Nothing was worth this.  And yet in the one small part of her mind that wasn’t screaming in pain and terror, she knew it was too late.

By Time and Trial… through Life and Grave!  Your Will IS HIS...  HIS HANDS ARE YOURS!!!”

And then suddenly, mercifully, she fell into the darkness.

She awoke naked, alone… lying in the snow on her side, partially curled up.  The first thing she noticed was she was not cold at all.  She could feel the snow around her, against her, and she knew that it was cool, but somehow it did not chill her flesh. She also felt no pain, no ache… no lingering trace of her ordeal. Her body felt strong, healthy, and full of energy.

As her vision came into focus, she slowly scanned her surroundings.  Everything was sharp, clear.  All the tiny little details of the world were popping out at her from everywhere.  Minute cracks in rocks, the rough bark of the trees, even individual pine needles. It was not just her vision that had improved. Her nose was alive with the scents of the forest; the sharpness of pine and musky snowfox and sweet damp earth, and even the pure freshness of the snow itself.  She could smell snow! And her ears heard everything; the rustling needles of the pines, the wind as it coursed through the tall trees, even each tiny snowflake as it softly alighted with its brothers and sisters to blanket the surroundings.

The snow was falling all round her and for the first time in her life she could SEE each tiny unique snowflake as they fluttered silently to the ground around her, and then suddenly there were millions of them each with their own distinct patterns and somehow her mind was tracking all of them, memorizing them, cataloguing them.

Her thoughts moved with astonishing speed. Eydva had always been intelligent, but this was something more.  Before it had felt like her mind was an ocean, and she was easily able to swim between ideas and concepts and navigate her mind at will.  Now, everything in her mind was at her beck and call. She didn’t need to navigate.  She could recall anything, any memory at will.  She no longer SWAM in the ocean of her mind. She WAS the ocean, and the many tides and currents and eddies were hers to command.

She thought of Staan, and his handsome visage appeared before in her perfect detail, summoned by her mind in more minute ways than she had ever even see with her own two eyes. She could see both him and the world around her in perfect clarity at exactly the same time. But something was… different.  As she thought of him, she did not flush as usual. Her young heart did not skip a beat like it usually did. She felt love for him, but the emotion was deeper, compared to before, as if buried under layers. Which isn’t to say that something wasn’t stirring within her at his image...

Something was definitely stirring, something darker and more primal...

As she gazed at him in her mind she began to notice how thick his muscles were, how perfectly corded his arms were, the way his legs, long and heavily built, pulsed with strength. Her mouth dropped open slightly, her breath catching, heavy and sensual, in her throat. She swallowed thickly, her legs rubbing together, wetness seeping from between her thighs, unbidden.

Between his own legs… she could see the bulge of his… his manhood. It seemed to shine with a bright, hot light, as if her own mind was saying “Notice this!!”  She thought, then, of  her body… and his body… perfectly shaped, perfectly aligned to one another. Of the things he could do to her. No. Even better. The things she could do to him! She moaned softly, and her legs seemed to involuntarily open at the mere thought of it. She brought a hand to her leg, nails digging into her flesh with a hunger she’d only barely ever felt before. Her eager fingers moved downward to seek out the deeper secrets of her new body...

“Ow!”  

Her lusty revery was suddenly broken by a sharp stabbing pain near her nethers… and apparently she was causing it! Each time she tried to move her hand downward she felt it…   Something her hand was doing was suddenly sharp and very stabby. Slowly she brought the offending hand up in front of her face to gaze at it more closely. Oh no. No, no, no, no!

Her stomach dropped, she felt faint as she stared at her transformed hand in horror.    

It was her nails. They were jet black, thick and incredibly long, slightly curved with sharpened edges and even sharper points.  And they did not feel like nails.  They felt like bone or even steel.  She had no doubt if she raked them across that smug smile on the statue’s face they would leave marks against the cold stone.

“No, not nails. Not any more...” she thought to herself grimly. “These are… talons… he gave me talons...”  

The blood drained from her face.  Of course he did. He was THE Clavicus Vile after all, and she had been a thrice damned fool for thinking she would make out any different than his other victims.  What else had he done, she reeled. Her head started to spin.

She had noticed her dusky lilac skin right way, but up until now had just thought of it was a trick of the light… the red evening sun against her new darker skin, but as she looked closer now, she could see it was definitely purplish grey, and not human at all.  Worse, it was covered with shimmering dark red markings, like someone had drawn on her in still fresh, wet shiny red blood.  They formed patterns and symbols all over her generous body that obviously had some kind of meaning, but it was lost on her.

She bit her bottom lip in consternation but that brought a sharp prick of pain too.  She flicked her tongue across the bottom of her teeth and found they were sharp, pointed, with two very pronounced fangs, like she imagined vampires had. Oh gods… was she a vampire now? That wasn’t a Clavicus thing, was it? She could have swore from her studies that it had something to do with Molag Bal…

In panic she put her hand up to her huge breast and pressed against it, trying to feel her heartbeat.  At first there was nothing, but then she felt it, faint, but steady. Only it was coming from the right side?  She moved her hand to the other side, and there it was… her heart, somehow... on the other side of her chest… still beating, quite strongly, but unusually slow, with a pronounced pause between the two syncopated beats. She was “alive” as far as she could tell, but she was far from human.

What in Oblivion was she now?  It wasn’t Nord or Breton, or any of the human races she knew, that was for sure. She was something... else.  Was she even a mortal now? She needed a mirror… a frozen pond… polished metal... anything she could use to see her reflection in.  She needed to know how bad it was. What he had made her into.  

She had to go home.