She swung the claymore clumsily at the fink warrior, the blow cutting deeply into the small creature, who collapsed onto the ground, lifeless. She picked up the corpse. This felt wrong. Her body felt all wrong. Her hands were fine, but her arms were...wrong. It didn’t make any sense.

 

Ten finks. That should be enough to please the king. She trotted awkwardly under the load of finks, passing down the hallways of the castle to the throne room. King Newtonson was there, grinning madly and rubbing his hands together. She handed over the corpses silently, one by one, barely even noticing the King's words.

 

Then a shadow leapt from the body of the final fink, dark as pitch, but strangely familiar-looking. Her surroundings shifted disconcertingly. As she reeled in confusion, the shadow slashed at her with claws of darkness.

 

"Why did you kill us?" it whispered.

Memories seemed to swirl around her and the shadow, glimpses of faces and people, inaudible snatches of conversation, the scent of musk. If only she could remember something, if only...

"This is the time to strike," shrieked a voice, "You must fight it!"

 

Inky tendrils lashed at her face. Gripping the claymore as hard as she could, she swung it again and again, until the blade cut clean through the shadow. It shattered into a thousand fragments of painful, razor-sharp light.

 

Snip.

She stumbled forwards as the whisper echoed through her soul, and then Atropos of the Fates was in front of her, a slight smirk on her face.

 

"With that strike, you have defeated yourself. A boring, forgettable, and meaningless life would have awaited you, but your victory here has changed all that."

 

An odd look entered Atropos' eyes. Cunning? Concern? Who knew what the Fates thought.

"Though your previous life is gone, there...may yet be a few hints of memory that will come to your consciousness. For example, do you remember what race you were, before entering the Portal?"

Images of races flew across her vision. Big, small. Furry, scaled. But they were all wrong. All wrong. Except...a flash caught her eye suddenly. Bat-like wings. Yes. No. But...maybe she was confused. So much had happened. It had to be faeling, right? Bat-like wings.

 

"Yes, yes. That form fits you quite well. I've no doubt that you've remembered correctly...no doubt that you've remembered correctly...remembered correctly."

For an instant, Atropos' voice echoed off into eternity. Then suddenly the face of King Newton reappeared.

"My scouts reported odd sightings amongst the fink ranks just before their attacks grew fiercer. Perhaps this shadow has been driving them against us. Slay and bring me dead fink warriors.

 

---

 

She awoke, sitting bolt upright in the hammock strung between two tree-branches. The same nightmare, every night. Except, it had really happened, hadn't it? She sat there looking at her tiny faeling hands. They felt wrong. The arms were fine, but the hands were wrong. She sighed, a tear running down her small, pretty face. She looked up beyond the trees, to the distant peak up above. Behind her, pale pink butterfly-wings unfolded, and she set off. Again.

Maybe this time it would work.

 

---

"Why won't you let me be who I am?" she screamed uselessly at the Portal of Fate.

 

She turned and ran down the mountain, tears blurring her vision and cascading down her pale cheeks. She ran as fast as she could, trying to flee things that couldn't be left behind. She collided with something hard, some sort of large stone, and fell back onto the ground.

 

"Need to watch where you're going, lass," said a voice.

She looked up, blinking the tears from her bright blue eyes. A well-dressed man was grinning at her, his clothes frilled with lace, and his face crinkled with lines. He handed her a brown bottle with a faded label.

"Have a sip. Healing tonic. One hundred percent guaranteed to make you feel better."

 

She did so, and nearly choked. Whatever was in the bottle burned her throat, and her sinuses, and somehow, seemed to leak out through her tear ducts, evaporating the tears.

 

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Me, I'm Jeremiah Gryphta, Purveyor of Fine… well...that doesn't really matter. What matters is who you are. Or aren't, as the case may be."

 

"Wha…"

 

"Every day," Jeremiah Gryphta continued, ignoring her protest, "You walk up this mountain, plead with Fates deaf to your cries, and walk back down again. Or sometimes run. And every day you walk right past the one place that could help you. You need to watch where you're going."

 

He was pointing towards an entrance in the cliffside.

 

"The museum?" asked the faeling, confused.

"Of Curious Relics & Miraculous Marvels! In there are magical mushrooms that can give you what you need. Your true form. For only….500 credits."

The smile that had been tugging at the edges of her mouth evaporated as fast as her tears had.

 

"I…I can't afford that."

"Of course you can't. But I am not one to offer hope only to snatch it away at the last minute. Here."

He held out his hand. Sitting on the palm was a small, dirty, rotten-smelling mushroom. She reached out towards it, then hesitated, her eyes narrowing shrewdly. It was an odd expression for a faeling to wear.

 

"What's the catch?"

"There's no catch."

 

"There's always a catch."

"You're too young to be so cynical. But very well. Once upon a mountain, old Jeremiah Gryphta was the purveyor purveying in dingbats. You had dingbats, you went to old Jeremiah. I was, so to say, a monopoly. Business was good, apart from an invasion of ice skulls ever so often. But then one day, along came the gnomes in their 'Starhopper'. Selling entire mines and farms, amazing mechanical contraptions, even copied my dolls shtick! All for dingbats. But that wasn't the worst part. Then they came up with 'aethergoop'. No one buys my pig noses anymore! Maybe Jeremiah is old and tired of them. Maybe old Jeremiah would enjoy seeing a someone with enough power to harass the gnomes."

 

The little faeling reached out and took the mushroom, cradling it carefully in her small hands.

 

"You want me to kill them?"

Jeremiah grinned.

 

"I want you to do whatever it is that your little heart desires."

---

She strode purposefully into the tunnel, her claws clacking on the stone floor. She was significantly taller now, though most of the mortal races would still have called her short. Her body was covered in pale pink scales, and small bat-like wings sprouted from her back. Her hands looked oversized, yet, for the first time since the portal, they felt perfectly right. Her snout twitched oddly.

 

Gnomes.

 

She took a bend in the tunnel. The short figure barely had time to look up before her fist slammed into his face. A second fist flew into his gut, and a spinning kick sent him flying backwards, head cracking into the wall. The gnome collapsed to the ground in a heap, dead, blood flowing from his broken skull.

 

She bent down in front of the lifeless corpse, and whispered to it.

 

"I am Nikkakorra the fink. And I have nine hundred and ninety nine gnomes to slay."