Life was a struggle for Fiona.
Orphaned at a young age as monsters killed her parents, she was left to fend for herself. Her father had been a hunter, and thus she took on his trade, teaching herself the ways of the forest the best she could.
But her father's natural proficiency she didn't have. Her aim with a crossbow never seemed to be true. Tripwires snapped her on the wrists when she was setting traps. She often got lost and found back home by sheer luck, falling off hills and scraping herself on branches in the process.
But she refused to give up. Day after day she forced herself into the woods, almost always managing to bring home a meager catch to feed herself with. The 14-year old girl was very thin, her diet featuring more berries and wild vegetables she managed to salvage than meat. Evergreen Woods was an ancient forest that didn't divulge its bounty easily, and deepest reaches of the woods were protected by vicious bears, territorial druids and other, far more terrible threats.
It was just another day, and Fiona was conflicted. She had just managed to catch a big, plump rabbit that was now strapped to her belt. But it was also her first proper catch in three days, as the girl's growling stomach reminded her as she was snacking on the few blueberries she picked up on the way.
Oh, and she was also lost. Again.
"Could've sworn the path was just around here..." she muttered to herself, pushing through bushes to search for a treaded path.
She indeed found one, hacking away a thick branch that revealed a small clearing. Fiona stepped in, stunned. In the middle of the clearing, shaded by low-hanging branches, was a small pond. Its crystal-clear waters sparkled with the few rays of sunshine that broke through the branches, the sound of flowing water brightly tingling her ears nearby. Apparently the pond was formed from an underground spring the flowed from between the small rock formation next to the pond.
She walked closer, marveling the pond. The bottom was smooth sand, the pond lined with perfectly formed sandstone and green grass. She pulled out her canteen and filled it up from the pond. Good thing she found it, her stores were running a bit low.
But the pond was still calling to her, inviting her to bathe in its waters.
Fiona shrugged. Why not? It had been a hot day, and her clothes were sticking to her skin. A bath would refresh her before she started to look for a way back home.
She set down her hunting bag and crossbow along with the rabbit, and stripped out of her clothes. Her hunting uniform had been a gift from her mother when she was nine, just a few months before her demise, but now it was worn, ragged and starting to get a bit small. She knew she would need a good catch soon to make new leather clothes.
Now in the nude, she slipped into the pool, sighing as the cool water caressed her aching body. She submerged herself, enjoying the momentary silence of the underwater environment before resurfacing, gasping for air. She took a rest by the side of the pool, lazily observing the rays of sun filtering through the canopy.
If only her life wouldn't be just survival day after day. She wished she could be a great hunter, like her dad. She wished she was strong.
"I hope I become a great hunter some day. The most powerful." she absent-mindedly stated, immediately wondering why she said it. There was no one there to listen.
But unbeknownst to her, the pond was very much listening, the ancient magic within rousing from its slumber as it began to turn the girl into what she wanted, what she was destined to be: A perfect hunter. An apex predator. Top of the food chain.
Fiona was making waves on the pond when her hands caught her attention.
The were much paler than before, her tan evaporating before her bewildered eyes. Matters weren't helped by the unbearable itching that began soon after, forcing her to submerge the limbs and start scratching them furiously in an effort to alleviate the sensation. It was in vain, as the pale coloration began to spread, quickly covering her torso and legs as she began to stretch out, her small lean body growing longer and stronger as she was now scratching all over, desperate attempting to ease the itching, unaware of the metamorphosis she was undergoing.
"AH!" she cried out in pain as she scratched her left arm especially hard. She looked on, stunned, as she saw her fingernails were growing longer, thicker and turning blue. The arm she scratched had had its skin torn off, revealing a layer of pure white scales, like those of a snake. However, they were quickly swelling and hardening with her growing body, and Fiona began scratching with renewed vigor as the itching turned even more vicious, not even caring anymore as she was peeling off her skin, revealing more and more scales beneath.
Her body was growing more and more, quickly leaving her little girl stature behind as she was now approaching two meters in height and her entire body was swelling with muscle, filling out her form as it swelled larger and larger. Her head and back hurt as her skeleton began to morph, her spine undulating and the bones in her hands and feet beginning to merge together.
"W-What's happening to me?" Fiona cried out, her voice deepening as she grew, becoming more mature, but also powerful. Her vocal cords were gaining immense strength as an incredibly strange sensation of her neck stretching out began, raising her head further up as her skull began to morph, her face pressing outwards. Her enlargening body was pressing against the boundaries of the pond, but she didn't seem to notice or care, her changing body wracked with so many sensations at once.
Her skin was in tatters, her claw-like fingernails revealing the scaled body beneath as she was growing more and more. Four meter. Five. Six. Seven. Her bodu swelling with muscle all the time, the remainders of her human body shaking off her evolving form.
SQUALCH
Her head let out a horrific sound as it rapidly morphed, shaking off the rest of her skin along with her hair as a large muzzle emerged from within, coated in the white scales. Her human skull was rapidly morphing, her nose pressing as slits against the muzzle, her eyes being stretched against the sides of her head as they changed color from brown to clear blue, her teeth sharpening and growing more numerous, capable of tearing through flesh and bone like a battleaxe.
CRACK
Her whole skeleton cracked as she reached nine meters in height, her body now a hardened biological machine of steely scales and bulging muscles. The change in her skeletal structure forces the girl to adopt a new posture, no longer capable of walking on two legs as she starts to favor the more sturdy four-legged posture, her legs adapting to this new form of standing as her limbs finish their transformation, her fingers and toes merging together into four new digits, crowned with vicious, bright blue claws, finishing up her dragon legs as she burst through the confines of the pond.
Yes, a dragon... she was becoming a dragon.
She should've been horrified, but her newly emerging dragon pride wouldn't let her. Why would she fight this? She was becoming the most glorious creature on the face of the earth!
She let out a mighty roar as her spine burst out of her body, quickly growing into a long, mighty tail. Her chest was swelling as her small breasts, remainders of her human nature, were swelling into large but firm scaly lumps, displaying her hybrid femininity. Her grown feminine slit burned within her loins as she imagined seducing and bending male dragons to her will, her reproductive organs morphing as they adapted to laying eggs. The slits was moistening, leaking copious amounts of fluid into the ruined pool as she imagined pushing down the smaller males, utterly dominating them with her superiority. It made her... not heat up, but cool down, as within her core formed a solid, tangible core of coldness.
Of course. She was an ice dragon, as her amazing snow-white scales implied. The fluids leaking down her snatch froze solid, as well as the remnants of the magical pool. Her cold essence spread out through the clearing, the plants succumbing to her cold presence as frost covered them.
"Frost... yes. I am not that pitiful human girl anymore. This world shall witness the rise of Frost, the future queen of ice dragons!" She declared, letting out a long burst of rime from her mouth to signify her new status.
Her spine warped and tingled and her skull hurt as with her ice breath her final adornments came in, icicle-like spines bursting from her vertebrae as her back was coated in them. Similar straight, icy blue horns burrowed out from her head as in her back the flesh was warping, something undulating from beneath until finally, with a mighty roar, her wings emerged, wide with a wingspan of at least thirty meters, with a finger-like icicle spike at their ends. Finally she reached her final size, standing now eleven meters with all four of her limbs.
The mighty dragoness clambered out of the tiny hole where she was reborn, leaving the mythical pond a ruin. Soon the waters she froze would unfreeze, leaking into the earth, never to bless anyone again.
Frost couldn't care less. The whole world was open to her now. She had declared herself a queen, and a queen she shall become. She spread her mighty wings, the blue membranes embracing the sunlight, and took off over the treetops.