The guards came over and lifted me up, and somehow, I ended up standing. They took several steps back, and then Selina came toward me, and then slowly started circling me. “Wow, I was right about you,” she murmured.
I took a deep breath. Looking down, I saw hands and arms, and my chest, bare now, and wider and stronger than I remembered. Tatters of what used to be my shirt hung off my arms, and a few still were fluttering down to the ground like fallen leaves. I reached up and felt my face. There was a fuzzy short beard now, and while I’d been clean-shaven only an hour ago, I was just happy that it was still human.
Because a lot of me wasn’t.
My eyes continued down my torso, which got darker and darker as the hair that started around my waist thickened in until I was looking at thick, sturdy musculature, an inhuman musculature that did not belong on my body but was there nonetheless. It continued down to long, strong equine legs that ended in black hooves, and continued back, far behind me, and I realized my body was incredibly long now, just going and going back there somewhere, another chest, another belly, and somewhere way back there was my behind, supported by what used to be my original legs but which were now thick, sturdy, dark, and horsey.
With Selina’s hand on it.
“You really turned out nicely,” she said. “Almost as if you were born for this.”