Blackness for a moment as she awoke.

Then everything sideways, a blur without color, disjointed to one degree or another.

Without moving from her bed she took a deep breath in and then as she exhaled, her loft apartment came into focus.

This was her habit of waking up.

Ten deep breaths, while stretching as she pulled herself away from her dreams.

With the tenth breath, she moved gracefully, not quite like a dancer but with a more economical style of movement.

It wasn't until she got out of the shower that she finally opened her eyes to look at herself in the mirror.

They were still a jagged, bitter thing and it still hurt like the first time just looking.

It's been six years from the day her teeth were taken and Ali's mouth had healed but it wasn't until the first year had passed that she realized that she was still changing.

The first year she was sick, with burning fevers, joint pains and waves of dizziness.

Doctors loved her that first year, but after that everything had changed for her, they had done every test in the book but all they ever found was the need for more tests.

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That year ended oddly for Ali. She woke up to no pain, No sore joints or pain in her bones. She felt like her body was just coming out of a long full body stretch and everything felt loose and relaxed.

Ali looked in the mirror and barely knew the person who was looking back.

She'd lost weight from her time spent visiting different doctors and her hair was a tangled flow behind her.

She felt taller.

She felt stronger.

And every year since then she kept waking up with something not quite the same as the year before.

She'd always been the cute brown eye'd girl and her family and friends quite liked them the way they were, they were one of her more distinguishing features but now they'd changed.

They'd somehow taken on a lighter more luminous hue that looked almost, almost gold.

Six years of self loathing, pain, regret and blood churning anger that finally helped Ali to focus on where the teeth came from and the double damned beings that did it to her in the first place.

They were a graph, living teeth to replace what was taken.

If the tooth fairies had human teeth in the first place they wouldn't have needed to forcefully trade for hers.

They took her teeth but replaced them with something of equal or greater value for what they took.

Normal teeth, just wait for a fistfight and they are yours but teeth from an eighteen year old who never lost or damaged a tooth was a rare thing, a magic thing.

So four teeth, traded for four teeth.

Magic stolen for magic taken.

Ali had learnt the problem with all magic, there was always a cost.

At that time had paid that price without knowing,

But now looking at herself with eyes not quite her own but still hers and a human mouth which held a predators teeth from somewhere.

She now began to truly understand what price she had paid.

She wouldn't cry but she did wash her eyes in the sink, letting the water run down her face.

It was going to be a long day.