"Why so sad, little one?" a gentle, compassionate murmur was coming from the tree itself. The tree took on two guises, one as a tree and one as a brown skinned, green haired woman, the dryad of the tree.
"I don't know anything about being a fairy! I don't know anything about being a girl!" Niki cried.
"There, there" soothed the dryad. "You'll like being a girl fairy. Changes happen for a reason."
"Whu, what?" asked Niki.
"Changes happen for a reason. I wasn't always a dryad, you know."
"What were you?" asked Niki, glad of the opportunity to get her mind off her condition by hearing someone else's story.
"I was a woodsman. I chopped down trees. One day my axe slipped, and I was lying on the forest floor bleeding to death." the dryad didn't seem disturbed by the memory. "My blood mingled with the sap from the tree I was cutting, and we were both healed, but I was changed into this form. Now I guard the tree and help protect the forest. I am far happier than I was as a woodman."
"You don't mind being a girl?"
"No, why should I? There is a friend of mine, a girl who was assaulted by a gang of men here. She prayed to the gods to save her, and they turned her into a faun, a male goat-human. Now he protects women alone in the woods. He is happy as well. Changes happen for a reason. What do you think is your reason?"
"Well" said Niki, feeling a little better. "The people who caught me were almost undoubtedly fairy-slavers, and I destroyed their little fairy-trap. Maybe I'm supposed to fight fairy-slavers and fairy-collectors?"
"That sounds very possible, little one. The numbers of your people have been shrinking here, and fairy-slavers are a plague to them. Would you like to meet some fairies?"
"Yes" Niki was facing her new life with some interest and even a faint twinge of excitement now.