My child is dead. Those animals killed him right in front of me, and I couldn't save him. I replay what happened over and over in my mind, wondering if there was anything else I could have done to change things. But in the end, it doesn't matter.

My child is dead...and those animals will pay.

I hold back the curse that I'm ready to unleash. Despite my sorrow, my anger, the willingness to for petty revenge, a part of me still considers; do they deserve it?

No. Yes. Maybe. Maybe not.

I consider who it is that will be the greater victim. Would the murderers even be among the ones punished if I do this? What if-no, no sympathy. No pity for the pitiful. Revenge must be dealt, justice will be done. I know it will.

I replay it again in my head...

"Mommy! Help me! I can't move." he cries, struggling against the net.

"I'm coming!" I cry, desperately trying to escape my own damned web. I watch them closing in on him, one of them raising a weapon as innocence itself screams to be recognized. I roar out in agony, just starting to escape and run towards him...before fate ripped him out of my heart.

How could I have been so stupid, as to have brought him to the raid? I should have gone with my instinct, left him with the others. But my pride, my damned pride. Wanting to show him how we lived, what we lived...

...and now my child is dead, and there is no more living to be had. And soon enough, they will suffer the same as I am now. All I need do is will it.

I wonder how long it will take for death to visit them. For fear to rear its monstrous head and claim their innocence as it claimed mine. They won't know what caused it, and I'm sure that forevermore, they will wonder what vile god of theirs could do such a cruel thing. Or perhaps they'll just try to forget it ever happened. I doubt it.

I chuckle. A part of me wishes there was a way I could watch and see what happens, but I haven't been able to bring myself to go back to the place where my child died. I can tell the others have been getting annoyed at my lack of presence in raids, especially the queen, but it doesn't matter. After this...there is nothing for me anymore.

I am ready now. I picture my child's happy expression in my head, knowing that after this, I'll have nothing else to live for.

I'm ready.

...

The front door slammed shut, jolting me out of my sleep. I lay there on my bed confused for a moment, before hearing my dad suddenly cry out.

"CAITRIONA!"

My name reverberating through the house, up the stairs, and into my ears. I cringed, his voice feeling even more grating than usual, but I just huffed and dug myself into my mattress even more, burying myself under my blanket. I reached up to grab my pillow to cover my ears for reinforcement for whatever else he wanted to yell at me, but it didn't appear to be there. It was too dark in my room anyways to bother looking for it, so I just groaned and lay there, still tired and not wanting to deal with anything right now.

I heard heavy footsteps running up the stairs, and I groaned. Seriously? He wanted to argue again, in the middle of the night? I had already made my point clear as day, I didn't see what else could be said.

The footsteps stopped at my door, and I braced for it to slam open and for the yelling to start. But strangely enough, that didn't happen. Instead, I could hear the doorknob slowly open and my dad entered the room quietly, approaching my bed. My heart beat in my chest as I pretended to be asleep. What was he doing coming in all sneakily?

"Caitriona?" he whispered, and I was shocked at how soft his voice was. Considering how our last conversation had went, it was weird to hear him sounding so tender.

"Oh Thor, not you too..." I heard him say, and I felt the blanket covering me getting slowly pulled away.

"Hey!" I cried, surprised at said action...or at least, that's what I tried to say, for all that came out instead was a high pitched bark.

I froze. I felt the blanket get ripped away, and I heard my dad gasp in horror. I looked up at him, finally opening my eyes. He was holding a small candle, the only source of light in the room, and from it I could see his expression, one of fear and disbelief.

"Caitriona..." he breathed. "Is that you?"

"Dad?" I said, but again, all that came out was a harsh squealing bark. I reached a hand up to my throat, wondering if it was sore, but then something sharp poked at my neck. I gasped and pulled myself away, but it was still there. I continued to try and pull away, until I realized what it was.

That sharp thing was a claw...from my own hand. Except it was no longer a hand, but a paw, covered with scales and claws on every digit, of which there were only four. My eyes trailed my new paw down to my arm, which was similiarly covered in scales that reflected the candlelight, glistening a brilliant green. I then tried to move my sight down to my body without moving my head, but something was blocking my sight. I reached down to move it, but stopped when I felt my unfamiliar claws touching it. It was then and there that I realized it was a snout.

MY snout. Like that of an animal.

"This...this isn't real." I thought, heart beginning to race in my chest. I looked down slowly, shaking with trepidation at what I would see next. I saw a pale yellow underbelly, that trailed all the way down to between my legs. Whatever I was, I was also naked. I moved to cover myself instinctively with my feet, not wanting to feel so exposed, but jumped when I saw two clawed lumps move instead.

Hindpaws...I had hindpaws as well.

A cold chill went through my spine, and I felt it go down my entire body. I was naked, exposed to the elements, and I had scales, paws, and claws. It was too much, entirely too much to take in.

"Cait?" I heard my dad ask again, and I jumped hard. In all the discovery of the last few seconds, though truthfully it felt like an hour has passed, I had already completely forgotten that my father was right next to me, witnessing everything. I looked up at him, not wanting to move, and yet, not wanting to stay there either. I just wanted to go back to sleep, wake up from this. This was all a dream, a nightmare. None of this was real. It couldn't be real.

My dad reached a hand towards me slowly, and I flinched back without thinking, causing him to stop. He seemed so much bigger now that I looked at him, and he was already a pretty hefty man. His hand looked big enough to cover my face, and his wide blue eyes stared at me, quivering with what looked like held back tears.

"Caitriona, please tell me that's you." he whispered. The urgency in his voice was agonizing for me to hear. It was the sort of tone I had only heard him use once before...when mom had died.

The memory of my mom, my dad's horrified expression and tone, and the fact that I had woken up as something other than human was all getting to me, assaulting my senses all at once. The whole room felt like it was bigger, and growing by the second. My dad wouldn't take his eyes off me, and I found myself unable to look away from him. I needed to focus on something other than what had happened to me, what I had become.

Inhuman whimpers filled the room, and it took me a moment to realize it was coming from me. I tried to stop, but then I felt the tears welling up, and holding back was making it worse. Despite this, I still tried futilely to stop. I couldn't cry, not here, not now, not in front of dad, not like this.

It didn't work. I cried.

A strong pair of arms suddenly scooped me up and I gasped, not moving as they struggled to find a hold on me. The candle my father was holding was now settled on the table, so it was only reasonable to assume that it was obviously him who had holding me now. Odin, he really was huge. I shook in his hands, still filling the air with whines and whimpers that I still found it hard to believe they were my own. It was already starting to dawn on me what I had turned into. What I discovered next only confirmed my thoughts.

I felt them before I saw them. My dad's hand brushed against my back, and I felt something extend from it. It was a strange feeling, like my shoulders had ripped out of my body but not entirely. My whole body was tense and shaking, causing my "shoulders" to spasm as I continued to cry. I turned my head to look, afraid at what I would find.

It was a pair of wings. MY wings. Wings that belonged to me. And not the kind with feathers either. The kind with soft webbing between the...phalanges? Yeah, that's what they were called I think, and spikes that ran down between my actual shoulders and down to my...oh Odin I had a tail too.

"I'm sorry baby girl." my dad said, and I felt a rush of shame and guilt, despite knowing that it was irrational. I didn't even care that he had called me something that in any other situation, I would have been indignant. This wasn't my fault, this wasn't his fault. What did he have to be sorry for? I curled up, covering my face with my paws, careful to not hurt myself with my claws. I couldn't accept it, I wouldn't! I shouldn't!

"Caitriona." he said cautiously, as though afraid of my reaction. "You're a dragon."

Hearing that from him, my father, the only person in the world who I could turn to for this, brought down what little of an emotional barrier that I had left. I didn't cry anymore, I wailed. I sobbed into his chest, pushing my head into his vest and feeling his hands holding me close. The whimpers and whines were louder than they have ever been, and if I had bothered to pay attention, I would have heard my my father sniffling as well.

"You're not the only one." he whispered, rubbing the back of my head comfortingly. "You're not the only one..."

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