The storm that night was nothing short of monstrous. Rain lashed the deck in sheets so thick it blurred the horizon, each drop striking like needles against wood and skin. The wind howled with a voice ancient and furious, whipping the sails and rattling the rigging. Waves rose like living walls, towering over the vessel with cruel intent, slamming against its sides and threatening to tear it from the seaβs surface entirely. Every creak of the hull felt like a warning, every tilt of the deck a dare from the ocean itself. Sailors clung to whatever they could, soaked and wide-eyed, hearts pounding with the primal fear that the sea would claim them β that the ship would vanish beneath the waves and theyβd be swallowed whole, nameless and forgotten in the abyss.
Caelyndra had tried to dive deeper, to escape the chaos raging above the waves, but the sea would not let her go. It stole her, tossed her, claimed her body like a prize and flung her into its fury. Her spear, her belt, the crab-shell pauldrons strapped to her shoulders, all threatened to be torn away with each violent surge. She fought against the current, clawing for anything solid: a rock, a shard of driftwood, even the jagged edge of a reef. But the ocean gave no quarter. The night was moonless, the sky a shroud of black, and even her amber eyes β sharpened by years of skirmishes in coral-strewn battlegrounds β could find no shape to latch on to.
Then came the wave.
A colossal swell rose beneath her, propelling her upward with terrifying force. She broke the surface in a blur of salt and wind, flung into the air, and then came the crash. Her body slammed against something hard and unyielding. Pain exploded through her chest and shoulder, and though Caelyndra was a warrior tested in battle with skin marked by scars, she shrieked in agony. Her vision blurred. One moment she saw sailcloth and wooden planks, the next nothing at all. The world spun, then vanished. And just like that, she was gone to it, unconscious, broken upon the shipβs deck.
...
When the storm finally broke, the sea did not settle into peace β only into silence thick and exhausted. The deck, slick with salt and rain, cradled Caelyndraβs unmoving form. Her breath came shallow, barely stirring the air, her body limp in the aftermath. The ancient magic of her kind had stirred beneath her skin, reshaping her with quiet brutality β not to heal, but to adapt. Bones remained fractured, pain nestled deep, but the spell had done its work. Had she been awake to witness it, she might have called it grotesque β a betrayal of everything she knew herself to be.
Where once a tail of glittering crimson had sliced through the sea with grace and power, there were now legs β thick, heavy, and unfamiliar. Muscles bunched beneath skin like coiled rope, built not for swimming but for bearing weight, for trudging through mud and stone. Her thighs and upper arms were mottled with red scales, uneven and jagged, clustering around her joints like natureβs crude armor. Each of them flickered with a soft iridescence under the weight of dawn, like moonlight trapped in glass. She lay sprawled on her back, her black hair tangled and soaked, strands plastered to her brow and lips. They spread around her in dark coils, impossibly long, like the remnants of a curse unraveling in silence. Only the sharp cut of her cheekbones and the strong bridge of her nose remained visible beneath the mess, like fragments of a statue half-buried in seaweed.
The red shell pauldrons had done their duty. They lay cracked and twisted, having absorbed the brunt of the impact aimed at her upper arms. But their protection had not extended far enough. Her forearms were broken, one bent at an unnatural angle, the other trembling faintly with some residual nerve-fire. Her belt had been torn in the chaos, pouches ripped open, their contents scattered across the slick deck: a tiny scroll, its edges curling with seawater; an ink vial, shattered and bleeding black into the wood; a quill, delicate and absurd in its fragility, lying beside her like a fallen feather. Her spear was just out of reach. Its haft lay across the deck, glinting faintly in the dim light, and her fingers β splayed and twitching β hovered near it, as if still searching, still reaching. But her eyes were closed, her breath shallow. Whatever instinct drove her hand had no mind behind it now; only the echo of battle remained.
Flesh that once flowed like water now bore weight and warmth, the swell of her breasts marked by bruises, the skin tender from the storm's violence. They sagged naturally, heavy with gravity and life, no longer buoyed by the oceanβs cradle. The coarse hair between her legs was wild, a dark thicket that barely veiled the new shape of her womanhood, untouched and yet crudely exposed. The transformation had robbed her of fluidity, of grace, leaving behind something heavier, rougher, but painfully real.
A creature of myth was now made flesh, a weapon turned relic, a hero turned spoil β a warrior stripped of grace, of armor, of power, left bare beneath a sun that did not honor her, and men who would not see a fallen hero, only a body.
Forgotten Realms
Sci-Fi & Cyberpunk
Modern & Supernatural
Finger-fucking
Fingers in Mouth
Character integrity
Absence
Endearments