Niki couldn't wait to get out of there. She flew directly away from the circle, back to the relative safety fo the woods. As the old peasant's curses faded in the distance, Niki began to perceive the strangeness of her newperceptions. Leaves loomed as possible landing places or areas of concealment, twigs looked like treetrunks, and treetrunks like mountains. Niki felt endangered the way she never had as a human. She knew that most wild animals avoided humans, but tiny fairies? What ate them? Probably something, judging by Nick's experience of the way the world worked.
She was also disturbingly aware of a new sense, that picked up the presence of magic and magical creatures. Trees that were the homes of dryads showed up in a way ordinary "dead" trees didn't.
Niki's tiny body also tired more easily. She fluttered into a deserted bird's nest to rest.
It was at that moment that the full enormity of what had happened hit her. None of what she had as Nick was available to her. She had become a fairy without knowning anything about what being a fairy was like, and female without the faintest clue of what being female was like. Did fairies have periods? Niki devoutly hoped not.
The newborn fairy cried hot, sugary tears.