As Valerie set off down the roads, she cursed the count and his steward under her breath. The lords of the land had let the roads of the backcountry fall into disrepair of late, and that meant a harder time for working peasants like herself to make a living, it meant and it meant an easier time for bandits and smugglers. Sometimes she wondered if Count Larreman, noted troublemaker that he was growing up, was doing it as a favor to some old friends, but she never voiced those accusations too loudly.
In any event, she’d gotten to know the muddy, overgrown cobbled paths she serviced like the back of her hand. It was for that reason it was all the more embarrassing when Valerie, trying to make up for lost time, snagged her left boot on a tree root, and took a dive face first into the grass. As she did, her satchel also went flying, scattering letters and parcels into the wind. She looked on in horror, if she lost a single package, she knew full well how her reputation would nosedive. Then came the worst news of her day when she saw a leather bag open on the ground, and a glass vial shattered into hundreds of shards. A dark, strangely shimmery red and green liquid, viscous like tar was splattered in the road. It appeared to be smoking in contact with the air.
Valerie crawled forward and feebly tried to reassemble the bottle. “No, no… shit!” She cried, her pride and livelihood felt like they were slipping through her fingers. Then without meaning to, she inhaled a deep breath of the smoke. Little did she know it was refined dragon blood she spilled, and she was breathing in the raw essence of magic from a once magnificent beast. It was pungent, but surprisingly not unpleasant, like the heavy duty incense the priests and cultists she delivered for were partial to.
Almost immediately, she felt a painful twisting in her stomach. It felt at once like she violently needed to vomit. Intense vertigo set in as every nerve in her body felt like it was running in overdrive, like she was connected with every minute twitch of her muscles. Her eyes watered, and as she squeezed them tight and opened them again, her vision adjusted to see… everything- from the farthest horizon to the slightest details, and colors in wavelengths she never could as a mere human. What she could not see were her own eyes, now with deep copper irises and cat like pupils.
“Oh gods… was this some kind of dream flower or what?” Valerie groaned as the sickness subsided. In fact she instead felt the opposite. Her body flooded with energy and adrenaline, and as she got up on her feet she found that she stood a lot taller. Valerie was always a compact woman of scarcely over five feet. Not anymore, she appeared to have gained nearly a foot in height, most of it in the legs it felt like. Valerie gasped as she saw the next changes coming, her chest expanded and filled out a physique that was accentuated with dense, wiry muscle. Her once modest bust now stood out prominently, not necessarily to her disapproval. The sudden growth spurt had, however, also left her traveling clothes tight and ill fitting on her.
She doubled over as the pain from before returned several fold, but now concentrated in a few places. A migraine like pain shot through her forehead first, as to her shock, a pair of sharp, hard protrusions of horn began to emerge. A surge of relief came over as they grew out to full length and curled back behind the crown of her head like an ibex. Her ears twitched and grew outward into a set of off white fin like protrusions on either side of her head. She moaned as she felt the aching renewed in her rear. It seemed the substance wasn’t done just yet.
“This… isn’t…. just a trip is it?” She panted as she felt a pair of sharpened incisors against a forked tongue inside her mouth, even as her lips also plumped up, just enough to be noticeable. A moment later her tailbone surged forward, ripping through the seat of her trousers. Her new tail was a slim and sinuous appendage, covered in glossy copper scales, accentuated by a greenish patina on their edges. She blinked a few times as she held the tail up to her eye level, trying to process that it was indeed a part of her. She didn’t do so for long as she felt an intense itching running up her spine. The back of her jerkin strained as two large lumps grew out of her shoulder blades. Valerie whimpered in pain until finally a regal set of leathery wings burst from her shoulders and ripped apart her top in the process. She now stood nude from the waist up, revealing the same copper scales that had grown up her spine, down her arms to her newly taloned fingers, and up her neck and across her cheeks and around her eyes, most of which had been quietly molting beneath her clothes.
Valerie pulled a strand of her longer, metallic red hair out of her eyes and took herself in. She was majestic, and terrifying, and she had no idea what to do with herself now.