I woke with a start. For a moment before my mind caught up I was still needed, Cassie’s hand was still burned and I was just lying there. My eyes snapped open in a panic as I tried to figure out what to do. Of course, a moment later I remembered how last night ended and began to calm a little. After a moment to compose myself I realised that I was still weak. Not as badly as last night, I could probably move in a pinch. Still, not exactly an amazing state to be in when all that lies ahead of you is a day’s worth of walking.

  I looked around and realised that I was leaning up against that tree from yesterday, which I most distinctly hadn’t been when I had fallen asleep. That woke me up properly, although there still wasn’t all that much I could do. I didn’t see anyone nearby, so Cassie must have wandered off to find something. Maybe she was looking for food. With the amount of healing I’d done last night, her body would probably be screaming at her for nutrients.

  That was something Almon and I had found out not long after experimenting with my healing abilities. Whilst the vitae I used was my own, at least mostly, I still had to use some of the body’s resources to properly heal something. I could do without, but that was more like bandaging a wound. That meant that whoever I healed would be hungry, thirsty and tired afterwards, and there was probably a hard limit on how much healing I could do based on each person.

  With nothing around to motivate me into moving, I decided to turn inward. First I checked my vitae reserves, which were a bit better than before but still worryingly low. I guess that it made sense having barely any lifeforce would make me feel like death. Still, either I was being far less efficient than usual in my panic, or the damage had been far more extensive than I’d thought.

  Physically I was… weird. I was still freezing, which was fairly uncomfortable to say the least. Something about my low reserves was playing havoc with my shapeshifting too, because I was almost constantly changing. It was worse even than when I had first started, pretty much all of me was changing in some way.

  I tilted my head and looked down at my arms, and seeing them was rather surreal. My skin, which was naturally pale but tanned from time in the sun, was currently light pink. Not saturated enough to disturb at a glance, but definitely noticeable if you looked too intently. They were definitely longer than before, like something massive had grabbed the tip of my fingers and stretched them. Even as I stared, that pink in my skin developed a spiral of pale green, which moved as though it was alive. It was mesmerising, and made me more than a little worried about what the rest of me looked like.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a mirror on me. What parts of my body I could see were the same, extended and vibrant, with swirling patterns like fog floating over my skin. I briefly panicked about what I was going to do about looking weird, before I remembered that I could change my appearance at a whim. I should probably start doing that more, honestly. The last year had kind of just been me avoiding haircuts with magic.

  Closing my eyes, I prepared my intent and slowly moulded my body as I had many times before. I started small, reverting my hands back to their proper size. That worked fine, so I moved on. Next were my arms, torso and legs, all of which had stretched like my hand had.

  Huh, I bet I’m really tall now. Maybe this isn’t so bad.

  Nevertheless, I slowly shifted back to my proper size. It worked, although I felt strangely… limited, all of a sudden. I pushed the thought away and shifted my skin back to its normal hue. Or at least, I tried. I couldn’t quite manage it at first, but eventually I pushed through whatever was stopping me from changing it. The moment my skin reverted, my hands started stretching again. When I put a stop to that, it was my legs. Trying to fully revert was like trying to cover something with a sheet that was two sizes too small, and whenever I got close I also felt that same stifling sensation, almost like I was being smothered. Eventually I just relieved the pressure and let my body start changing on its own again.

  Over the course of the next couple of minutes, my body slowly changed itself back to how it was before, with the swirling fog-skin and the weirdly proportioned limbs. I could only imagine how many other strange features I had. I did find that I could move a bit easier now, like I was lighter or something.

  With that thought, I pushed myself slowly off the ground, braced against the tree. Good thing too, because almost as soon as I stood I was hit with a veritable tsunami of vertigo. It got bad enough that I just slumped back down into a sitting position, shaking my head as I waited for it to pass.

  No standing up. Good to know.

  Thankfully, Cassie showed back up not too much later. She had a badger cradled in her arms, for some reason. As she broke from the treeline, I couldn’t quite tell if it was asleep or dead, but it wasn’t moving. She slowed as she approached, giving me a once over.

  “You look… different,” Cassie hesitated.

  “Didn’t look like this when you left, huh,” I asked.

  “Nope. I mean, you were definitely heading down weird street, but not so far. What’s with the moving skin?”

  I shrugged. “No clue. Can’t change it, either. At least, not all at once.”

  Cassie stared at me for a moment, before squinting and leaning in, muttering something under her breath. “Why are you sucking up so much ambient mana?”

  I paused. “I am?”

  “Oh yeah. Like, active enchantment levels of drain all around you. I assume you aren’t doing any magic, so whatever it is that’s causing you to look like that clearly likes mana.”

  “Huh. I… don’t know what to do with that information.”

  “Yeah, neither. Hey, want a snack?” She dropped the badger at me feet carelessly enough that I winced. This close, I could feel that it was still alive. In more than a bit of pain though, at least if the utter turmoil its vitae was going through was any indicator.

  “What did you do to this thing?” I asked.

  “Shocked it. How else was I supposed to get it to you alive? Would’ve scratched me if it was awake.”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “...That explains the smell, at least.” Despite my reluctance, I couldn’t help but reach out and place a hand on the unconscious creature’s neck. Now that I was touching it, the vitae the badger held was almost magnetic. I remembered how low my reserves were, and I felt the strange chill that still invaded my bones. Sympathetic or not, it wasn’t really a choice.

  “Sorry little guy,” I muttered, before I tore through what little resistance it had and began to drink in his vitae. It felt like hot water after a cold night, practically searing me as I drank more. The burning soon faded, and I found myself falling into something of a trance. The experience was euphoric, like how I imagined drinking fresh water after days of dehydration felt but through my entire body. I felt the begins of a cramp in my back vanish, felt a subtle soreness in my throat clear up.

  After a minute of this, I realised that I had been unconsciously slowing down my drain just to extend the experience, and promptly sped up. Out cold or not, I had given myself a peek into what this felt like, and it wasn’t the most pleasant feeling in the world. A moment later the badger was gone, mostly healthy but stone dead. I felt a little bad, but this wasn’t that far from regular hunting. The main difference was why I was hunting the creatures, and I still got use from them.

  “You done?” Cassie asked.

  I let out a long sigh. “Yeah. That feels great.”

  It truly did. I felt like a long dormant hearth that had finally been lit. The invading cold had been driven from my bones, and moving didn’t feel like a chore any more. I also felt more alert, like someone had skipped my head and directly splashed my brain with cold water.

  “Good,” Cassie said simply, before muttering a spell and waving her hand. I watched as the badger’s corpse flew into the woods, presumably to be eaten by water stumbled upon it first.

  “…We probably could have eaten that.” I said flatly.

  “Details, details. At the end of the day, the badger’s still gone.”

  I looked at Cassie. “You seem weirdly chipper, given what happened yesterday and all.”

  Her expression fell slightly, just briefly enough that someone who didn’t know her wouldn’t catch it. “Yeah, well injuries are part of life for an adventurer. Besides, I should be celebrating having the best friend ever, who definitely wouldn’t tell me off for being careless when I cast a spell, right?”

  I sighed. “Fine. Just… be careful, yeah.”

  Cassie’s expression grew a touch more serious. “Yeah. I didn’t exactly enjoy the whole experience myself.”

  We fell into silence for a moment, which was broken by Cassie. “So, what’s with the whole weird look?”

  I started, realising that I was still all stretched and shifting. It felt… good, maybe freeing. I got to my feet and was amazed at the smoothness of my movements. I definitely felt lighter like this, which might have something to do with the mana absorption that Cassie had mentioned. I mean, my body was supposed to be mostly mana, right? So maybe having more mana meant that I was stronger.

  I went to move over to Cassie, almost tripping and falling over immediately. Apparently, suddenly having a stride significantly longer than usual makes it hard to walk. Once I recovered, I ignored the snickering coming from my target and reached over to grab her by the shoulder. Damn, was I tall now. I mean, sure it was a weird kind of tall where my limbs were way too long, but still. I had to be at least a full foot above my regular height.

  “What do you think you’re doing there, huh?” Cassie asked as I moved my hand to the collar of her shirt. Slowly, making sure not to tear the fabric, I lifted Cassie. With one hand. It wasn’t easy, and I could barely hold it, but still. I had to stifle all kinds of celebratory noises. Cassie yelped when I picked her up, before promptly scrambling a couple of metres away when I put her down again.

  “Some warning next time?!” She shouted.

  I put my hands up in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. Still, I definitely feel stronger like this.”

  For some reason, this form felt… weird. It felt draining, in a strange way that I wasn’t used to. After a moment’s thought, I had an epiphany and turned my gaze inwards again. Sure enough, my body was supplementing most of its functions with mana. That freed up enough extra vitae that I still had a net gain even after whatever was used to rebuild my body like this, which I guess was why my body automatically shifted into this when I used too much last night. The issues with this were twofold, however.

  The first was that the body wasn’t really meant to run almost solely mana. Mine was a lot better at it than most, because my body was largely mana already. I assumed that this was the real reason for the increased ambient mana absorption, since my body was compensated for a lot of the damage by just adding more mana to plug the holes. This fact made my current form a lot more malleable than my human form, but it also made it startlingly inefficient, which lead into the second issue.

  The second issue was that I only had so much mana to call my own. I hadn’t really needed to worry about this before, because my illusion spells were pretty cheap and my body was very efficient at converting ambient mana to my personal mana. Still, this form was starting to damage my channels and I could feel my mana start to deplete. I really didn’t want to find out what happened if I ran out, so I quickly shifted back to my original form, which I found much easier than earlier.

  I felt instantly more comfortable, like I had been holding my breath for too long and just let it out. Still, I kind of missed the ease of movement that came with the other form. I would definitely be keeping it in mind for when we inevitably needed to kill some big monster.

  “Oh, you’re back. That’s good, you looked kind of freaky before.” Cassie said from beside me.

  “Yeah, I think I’ll be saving that for later. It was fun though. Can’t wait to find something reflective to see what I looked like properly.”

  Cassie shrugged, before giving me a hug. “I’m glad you’re alright. When I woke up you were so cold, and pale. I was worried.”

  “Shouldn’t I be the one saying that? Speaking of, let me see that.” I grabbed her hand, giving it a cursory examination. I hadn’t been quite as clean as I had thought last night. Everything was perfectly functional, but the top of her hand had pale silvery scarring spiderwebbed across it, beginning at the tips of each finger and running down the sides of her hand until it reached her wrist. It wasn’t overly noticeable, but if you looked for a few seconds you would see it.

  I swept my vitae through it, pressing my will against her body's designs and, for the first time, failing. I tried again, to the same lack of a result. I remembered a similar phenomenon happening from time to time with some of Almon's provided experimental creatures. For some reason, I couldn't quite heal that which had already been fixed, no matter how sub-par the fixing.

  "I... can't fix it," I said. I felt rather powerless. In my mind the stakes had always been low. I mean, if one of us was hurt I could always just heal us. But now, only a couple days into our journey, Cassie was marked forever.

  Cassie must have seen my expression, because she spoke up. “Don’t worry about it, scars are part of the job. For most of us, anyway,” she said with a pointed look. “Besides, I think it looks kinda hot.”

  I groaned. “Nevermind, you deserve all of the scars for that one.” I let her hand drop and began walking over to where our bags were lying next to each other. “Come on, you must be starving after last night. I know I am.”

  Cassie hesitated. “Okay, so I may have already eaten.” I paused and turned back to her.

  “Why do you sound like you’re confessing to a crime?”

  “…I may have eaten your share this morning, too. I was really hungry!” She added desperately.

  I stared at her in betrayal. “Should have eaten the damn badger,” I grumbled.

  “Sorry,” Cassie mumbled, downcast.

  Gods damn it, don’t make that face. I’m supposed to so mad right now!

  “It’s fine,” I sighed. “This is why we pack more food than necessary, I guess.”

  Cassie’s expression brightened, and the part of me that was upset with her for eating my food withered and died at the sight.

  “Still, I’m handling the food from now on,” I said, before looking up at the sun. “Now come on, we’re way behind schedule.”