We arrived at the river near the village that our adventure group decided to stay at, to spend the night before we travel again towards the guild headquarters in the capital. At the river she let go of my hand, “no” went quickly through my mind when that happened, she walked closer to the river hunched down and picked up something. When she turned around I saw in her hands she was holding a dark green tortoise with yellow and black lines that made many complex patterns on its shell. The size of the tortoise signified it was about a year old and that is if you do not count why it is in this river. Sure, a horseback travel along this river to the ocean is two and a half days away, but these tortoises have their habitat about two full months south, by boat, of where the river flows out. So call me surprised.At that point I said “That’s strange, these types of tortoises have never been recorded this far north. I wonder how it got here.”
The girl nodded “This poor thing is very far from home.”
When I saw her face change from being happy to sad, I just could not stop my hand from patting her head. When I stroked through her green hair I mentioned “There is probably an answer to this problem, but right now we will have to take it home someway, right?”
When she heard this, her face immediately started to shine again, like a sun that started to climb the sky again after a night sleep. I needed only to lightly bend forward before I kissed her hairline. “As I thought Aine is the cutest when she smiles, no matter what form you take.”
At that remark the girl that I call Aine responded with a slight blush on her cheek “You also say that I am the cutest when angry or embarrassed.”
“And that’s what I mean whatever form you take”
Is what I responded back. At that her already blushing cheeks became redder, I want to hug her. Oops that was close, would not want the poor tortoise be crushed between us. I took a closer look at the tortoise. Hmm, nope cannot figure it out, the gender that is, on the tortoise of course.
“Did you notice anything?”
I paused before I would answer to her questioning look. “No, it looks like it is absolutely healthy, no problems here. By the way, why were you here by the river? ”
“Oh, I thought that it would be nice to change near the river.”
When she said that, something in my head clicked. “Hehe, are you still going to change now?”
When she heard my somewhat creepy laugh in the beginning, she started to pout with her adorable cheeks and stuttered. “W-what d-do mean by that, you absolutely want to watch my other form more than this form surely!”
After midway through the sentence her inferiority complex showed itself, what she feels towards herself, or rather at her other form. At that I carefully wrapped my arms around her, because a tortoise is still in her hands, and responded both gently and confident. “You should know by now, no matter which of your forms you are, even if you turned into a troll, I will always love you because you are my heart and core.”
After two and a half year together and she still does not acknowledge my love fully, I feel a little depressed but as long as I can be together with her, I do not mind what she thinks of me. Well maybe I get to see her transformation again as an apology, hehe.
Not noticing my face change, probably, to a perverted smile, I could feel her head nod on my shoulder. At that I made my smile back to normal and slowly released her from my arms. I looked into her green eyes, the same green colour that is in her hair and if I looked around myself I would notice all around me the flowers before they blossom had the same green colour. It is a colour that tells me it is spring around me. She stretched out her hands for me to take the tortoise from her. “This here is Shuyaku, be nice and stay in his hands while I change. Shu, you can call him Kilpi-Konna.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“How do you know it is a he?”
I questioned, while I took the tortoise in my hand and started look for something distinctive. “And why a so long name, wasn´t Kilpi enough?”
“Humph, both is a secret.”
She tried to hold back a laugh but what came out sound more like a happy humph, well put aside her mysterious reasons, she reached the edge of the river and turned towards me smiling brightly.
It was now her appearance started to change. The first change that I noticed was her feet’s colour changed from a light green tone to a light blue tone and the change went up, all the way to her hairline where her green hair lost all the yellow in it and all that was left was a clear blue colour similar to the river behind her. I saw her eyes changed from the energetic sparkling green to the calm and relaxing sea blue. I also noted that her stature was different, of course I already knew before how much she changes between her forms, if her former self was like a somewhat younger girl in her growth spurt, this girl in front of me is my or maybe a little older than my age, that would say 19 years old (soon 20), with curves where men apparently want them to be. Just as a sidenote I don´t care much for appearance, except for my dream girl but more on that later, if they are sexy or cute that is just a plus for me. When I saw the last change with her ears that suddenly split three ways and they looked like something fishes have. Fins! That’s what it is called. Now that her transformation was done, I noticed her dress was little tighter on her body, it feels like she flow towards me and when she reach me, I gave her back, umm, that’s right Kilpi. In this form she even has the same height as me, well that just mean I can look into her endless sea that you find in her eyes without tilting my head.
The girl before me right here is my girlfriends water form and even if her appearance and behavior have changed, I know that inside, she is still the same girl I talked to just a half minute ago. This young woman, Alkuaine Vaihtajan, is my Elemental Shifter girlfriend and her human boyfriend is a young man with the name of Shuyaku Nayak. That would be me.
Author Input: Phew, finally done. I had trouble trying to figure out what she was going to pick up and maybe I regretted it a little because spelling tortoise is very annoying, thanks to copy paste everything went smoother:). Well the three coming chapters will be about her other forms and little more info what an Elemental Shifter is. Of course this will be pretty slow paced, even I think so… Well you could say the fifth chapter is where the story will begin. Now those people that had questions from the former chapter and haven´t got their answer yet, you can ask in the comments I will answer as many as I can, and also if you notice something is wrong or don´t sound correct, that I maybe will need to correct, I will gladly look into it. I hoped you liked and enjoyed this second chapter and I hope you will continue to read this story.