>>6055405>>6055410>>6055420You are your companions attract no small amount of attention as you approach the centre of the Old Maple Hill encampment. You sense fascination, but also an undercurrent of unease, verging on fear. You chalk it up to the train of captured Unseelie adversaries who you march in your midst, and take some small, spiteful pleasure in their own obvious discomfort—they aren’t sued to being paraded so and, with your feycraft upon them, every human and halfling here can see them plainly.
However, it’s not just them.
“What ARE they?”
“And why are there two Izirinas?”
“What happened to HIM?”
The last comment reminds you of your own changed shape, and you begin to grow self-conscious of your pale complexion and dark eyes. So too are you made newly aware of the weightless step of your feet—something usually innate to your <Improved Aetehreal Form>, but not to your material one. It goes beyond elven grace, to something truly unearthly, and you briefly have the absurd fantasy of weighing your trouser pockets down with rocks to compensate.
But it’s Costella’s reaction that really makes it hit home
When you come upon Costella, she is holding a clay basin of water, with which she is filling troughs for the small community’s collection of livestock—cows and gats kept for milk, chickens for eggs, sheep for wool. You call a greeting, and she perks up immediately…
And then her eyes widen.
And then her face falls.
And then the basin drops and shatters.
(To her credit, she doesn’t scream…)
“E-Ez?” she whispers, bringing her hands to her mouth. “Is that you?”
You aren’t really sure how to respond to that, honestly, so you just nod. She rushes to you, stopping just short of touching you. It’s a moment’s hesitation, but it hurts. When she cups your face, it is with pity as much as affection.
“Oh! Oh no... Ez… What happened?”
“He’s evolved, obviously.”
