Squinting through her cataracts, the old woman lifted her bony finger and launched her spell. Unfortunately, her aim had suffered quite a bit over the years, and she overshot you completely. In the same instant, her crow chose this moment to swoop low over your upturned face, thankfully avoiding scratching any skin but acting as a distraction for its mistress. Thus, the spell hit the bird dead on mere inches from your nose.
“No!” The witch cried out. “Ebony!”
For a moment, the crow froze in mid-air, its wings outspread and its beak open in a startled caw. Then, you heard a loud pop, and feathers flew in all directions. After that, the world went crazy around you.
As had been stated before, the spell was much too powerful for the average person to handle. The spell simply had far too much magic than was needed to perform such a relatively easy transformation, considering that this world had been steeped in magic for so long that every living thing in it already contained enough magical potential to take care of most of the “heavy lifting.” People like you, however, possessed a gift, or curse as the case may be, that resisted any magic placed on you. As such, your body acted as a natural heat sink for magic, dulling its effects and keeping it from affecting anything else but yourself.
Had the woman’s spell found its intended target, you would have been transformed as planned with minimal collateral effects. Instead, the magic shot into a small, feathered body with no resistance whatsoever. Needless to say, the results were rather explosive.
Back in the present, even as numerous black feathers bounced off your face, a thud made you look down to see a stunning young woman sprawled on the dirt at your feet, naked as a jaybird. Or a crow. Behind a curtain of inky black tresses, her pale grey eyes darted around her surroundings in confusion. Red lips parted to release a rather sultry “Caw?”