Quickening

Quickening
It was as though new life was flowing through her, sending sparks of energy to the tips of her fingers and toes, a feeling like nothing she’d experienced before. Perched high on the inn balcony at Stormspire, Ayrma gingerly touched her rounded stomach. For the first time – the very first time – the child moved.

And there was noone nearby to share it with but an ethereal innkeeper.

Ayrma rose from her seat and tried the shift again, Kaldorei to stormcrow, and this time it worked. Worked completely, an effortless shift from one form to the next rather than the painful transformations of the previous days. Somehow, without the aid of a mentor or teacher, she’d learned what she once thought beyond her grasp. Only the very powerful among the druids at home could fly.

She’d never been one of the powerful, yet here she was, hanging in midair above the balcony. The changes were happening faster than she thought possible, and without a clear explanation.

The child moved again. Within the form of the stormcrow it was uncomfortable. Unborn life probably wasn’t supposed to deal with the stress of such changes – cat, bear, crow, Kaldorei, but what was the child? A mixing of druidic lines and of the unknown: the fel energies of the Outland.

Wherever she went, only more questions but this time, at least, she knew the child was growing, thriving. She slipped effortlessly back into her true form and sat again, drained of energy and too enthralled with the simple movements of an unborn child to consider the rest of the picture.