She was running through a dense coniferous forest. A stone dug into her foot making her quicken the next step and causing it to land a little more forcefully than she intended. Dry needles covering the ground stung into her bare sole and she hopped the next few meters from mossy patch to mossy patch to relieve her abused feet.

There wasn't much time to dally and she soon picked her pace back up. Hurting soles or not. An errant root ensnared her toe and she stumbled, almost not catching herself on a branch in time. She paused only long enough for a quick breath to steady the mild panic that sprang up at the thought of falling. She couldn't afford to fall. Not now, definitely not here.

Something was after her. Although she couldn’t tell what it was, she was absolutely certain that she was being chased. Now and then she’d catch a sound made by her pursuer, or spot a shadow dashing between trees in the corners of her vision.

Dashing over a stump, she felt her foot slip on a slick rock and she fell into a small stream, hidden under a small overhang. A splash accompanied her loud curse and a sharp rock dug itself into her hip, drawing blood.

Wasting no time, she stood up and ran on, her steps silent in the grassy meadow.

She ran and she ran.

A bunny hopped from a small bush on her left and into a burrow on the right of her. A vulture circled above. She could see for kilometers all around, but there was no sight of the thing chasing her.

Tired, so tired, she thought as she leaned on a majestic oak with a trunk so wide she’d be unable to wrap her arms around it even if there were three of her.

Rustling sounded from behind her and she turned to see the corn stalks sway as something ran through the field.

It found me!

She took off her backpack and rummaged inside for a moment, pulling out a pistol. With the bag back on her back, she gripped the weapon tight but flinched away as her hands clutched fresh blood. It ran freely down her forearms.

I don’t have time for this. Where did it go?

She lost sight of the hunter when she got distracted.

Standing still seemed like a bad idea, so she turned around and ran down the hallway, trying one door after another, but none of them would budge. She was almost at the end when a rustle made her turn.

A tall man clad in armor was making his way to her, a limbless torso slung over one shoulder, its head turned just so she could see the poor woman's face. It was full of fear and… resignation. His eyes, though, were filled with rage and utter hatred, all pointed at her.

Sights aligned, she aimed at the man's chest, but just as she was about to press the trigger, the pistol's muzzle flopped downwards as if made of jelly. She willed it back into shape, to become rigid again, but she overcorrected and it was now bent upwards. She tried again and again, but no matter what, the gun refused to be aimed at her adversary.

NO! He was getting closer and closer, so she gave up and threw the useless thing at him. It bounced off harmlessly and she again ran for it.

Just as she reached the door at the end of the hallway and flung it open, another door, across from the room she now found herself in, crept open. She stood in darkness looking at her father, standing in an illuminated bathroom, watching her with a smile on his face.

She tried to shout for him, to call his name, to ask for help, but as she opened her mouth, no sound escaped her. She tried to reach for him, to make her legs move, but neither limb would obey her command, and she was left with the feeling of doom slowly creeping upon her from behind. She couldn’t even look to see, her head unmoving as well.

Something pushed her to the ground and she finally saw a large snake looming over her. Paralyzed, she couldn't do anything but watch as it positioned itself at her feet and began slowly eating her from the legs up. It paused for a moment at her knees but swiftly continued devouring her whole.

She tried to scream, but it was futile. She tried to flail around. Without success. There was only the feeling of being eaten. And her father’s smiling face that he always had when he saw her, not seeing the predicament she was in, only being happy at seeing his daughter. There was no malice in his eyes, for he truly didn’t see anything wrong, he didn’t see that she needed help, he didn’t hear any calls for help. For him, there was no snake.

But for her, there was. It finally stopped at her waist and turned slightly to the side. A giant green eye, vertically slit, looked her in the face and the serpent smiled.

It straightened back out and bit down. Two enormous fangs slipped into her just under the navel and through her pelvis. There was no pain. She only felt pressure where the snake's mouth crushed her hips.

***

She looked up and saw the ceiling. It took some time, but eventually, a thought formed in her head.

This isn’t my room.

Ixalia woke up without making a sound nor even a twitch. Her mind was completely blank. She just stared up above herself as her brain went through its boot-up sequence. It took a moment for her body to catch up to her mind and realize that she was indeed awake and that it should start doing something to reflect that reality.

When at last her thought started to spin again, her hand dashed down to her belly, followed by her gaze. Just where she felt the snake bite her, a hand rested over her, hugging her tightly, almost desperately. She looked up it and found Sidy curled up right next to her, still asleep, but with fresh trails down her face.

Her friend looked peaceful at the moment, so she refrained from waking her up and laid her head back down.

That was… something. How long has it been since I had a nightmare? Since I was twelve? More? Less? I can’t really remember.

It took a couple of minutes for Sidy to release what has become a death grip. And just in time, since Ixa really had to go where even queens traveled on foot.

Early dawn, she made an observation as she watched the sun crest the horizon. She grabbed a nearby chair and hauled herself up. She could stay upright now with how long her… tail… had become. Either it wasn't enough or she hasn't found the right way to do it yet, but she was unable to… walk? Slither? How am I supposed to call it now? Anyway, it's not really important, is it?. She wasn’t capable of locomotion yet as she was still getting used to the feeling of her rather unusual body and how it felt and moved around with her mental commands.

The chair was sort of a crutch. She placed it as far away as she could and dragged herself to it, only to repeat the process until she got where she pleased. And right now, there was somewhere she needed to be, and urgently so.

With her morning needs taken care of, she procured several loaves of bread and a pitcher of water. Yesterday's batch, looks like it's too early for the servants to bring fresh breakfast. No matter, ain’t no rest for the wicked.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Ixalia made her way back to her bedroll and sat down, her back to the wall and her tail unrolled before her. From her waist, it now measured three meters, making her something like four meters long overall.

She fished her first mouthful of the day from the cloth sack where she stowed the bread and bit down. She more or less never stopped eating throughout the day now. Sleeping proved to be a challenge as well as she always felt hungry. And trying to fall asleep on an ‘empty stomach’ wasn’t pleasant before, much less so now.

Between mouthfuls, she opened up her tablet where she left off the day before and continued with the article she had been reading. At the same time, she found the courage for something she put off for long enough.

Ixa started doing her mana channel exercises, if only for those she knew were intact. She kept it up through all those terrible days, but until now she avoided her side and arm and anything below the waist. Though it was time.

As she neared the end of her routine, she tugged at the channels of hers that she cut off, starting at the peripheries near the hips. Everything responded as it should have without any discomfort and she started weaving back what she broke.

The girl had thought of it beforehand. She had carefully mapped her new organs and consulted her cache of knowledge for the best way to do this. The new weave would closely resemble what she had around her regular innards, with the basic network recommended for beginner mages everywhere else. She’d make specific changes after she saw how the tail would react to her meddling.

Sometime during her work, Sidy once again confiscated her midriff, but she paid it no mind. Or more specifically, she didn't even notice with how focused on her task she was.

Regrowing channels or making new pathways was never easy, but she found traces of her previous ones, that collapsed without mana circulating within for a prolonged period of time. It was easier restoring those than it was making brand-new ones. And she found that these had grown just as her tail had, making her do much less work than she expected to have to do.

She was nowhere near done when she stopped. She looked around and found she was all alone in her corner of the room, Sidy and the others having woken up and gone to do their own things.

Backtracking a bit as she couldn't remember what she'd read, she took a bite of another loaf and turned her attention to the article on her tablet. She'd continue with her channels some other time, her current focus was something she looked forward to, hoping it would turn out well.

As she finished reading, she looked around. Where did I leave the notebook? Ah! There it is. She picked it up and leafed to the end where there was a drawing of her own making. Ixa compared portions of it to those she found on her tablet and satisfied with everything, she nodded just before taking another bite.

From her bag, she took out a small knife and a pencil. Setting both at her chair, she looked at them. How am I supposed to do this? She frowned as she looked at her shriveled-up arm. It didn't hurt anymore, at least as long as she didn't fall on it. Which still happened more often than she'd like.

One thing they don't tell you about having only one hand is how gods damned inconvenient it is.

Her frown deepened as she looked at both items from different angles. There probably was some spell out there for what she needed to do, but it would have taken her much longer to get proficient enough for her needs than she was willing to spend right now.

In the end, she used the scalpel spell to make a hole in the chair slightly smaller than the diameter of the pencil and then she rammed it inside. She then tugged on it in different directions, and satisfied with how put it stayed, she picked up the knife.

Possibly, she could have used the spell again to do this, but she didn't feel like it as well as didn't think her control and concentration were good enough at the moment to try. And figuring the way she'd have to guide her mana to make such intricate details would have been a headache all its own.

So, she simply used the knife and began carving thin lines into the pencil, rotating the chair to get it where and how she needed it. Ixalia kept glancing between it and her drawings, tracing lines on the wooden handle with a marker and double-checking before cutting into it with the sharp blade.

To an outside observer, what she made wouldn't make much sense other than looking like a pretty pattern. To her, it was the foundation for making a magical tool. And for that, she'd need magemetal. Which was something that she was refused when she asked for it. The reason she was given was that their 'hosts' didn't have enough and that it was too expensive.

She had to raise an eyebrow and look at the floor whenever she recalled the conversation.

Expensive maybe, but not enough my ass. There’s tons of it right there on the floor. They wouldn’t even let me repurpose some of it.

Whatever the true reason, the fact remained the same. She needed some and there was only a single place she could get it right now. So, when she was finished and satisfied with her carvings, she… she took a bite of an apple that SIdy handed her together with a hot bowl of soup.

Is it lunchtime already?

And, indeed, it was. She looked up at her friend, who just smiled and sat down next to her, with her own’s portion of the steaming soup.

"You looked so engrossed in whatever you were doing that it felt wrong to interrupt," Sidy explained as she blew into her bowl to cool her lunch down. "Do you have some bread? The soup and apples was all I could carry."

Ixa set her own bowl on the chair and stuck her hand into the sack at her side. It was empty. "Sorry. I'm all out." She showed her friend an empty palm with an apologetic grin.

Sidy stared at her before managing to make her jaw work. "Seriously? I packed it to bursting earlier, how did you eat it all already?"

It was Ixa’s turn to be surprised. “You did? When? I didn’t even notice.”

“You handed it to me and said ‘bread’. Don’t you remember?” Sidy asked.

Ixalia looked between the pencil she'd been working on, the empty cloth bag, and her friend. "No, not really? I have a vague memory of talking to you at one point, but nothing specific. Sorry."

“Seriously, you’ve refused to tell me anything about that pencil for four days. What is it and why are you so fixated on it?"

She grinned at her friend. "Not telling, you'll see soon enough. And as for the bread…" She turned and looked to the table where food was placed for them. "Hey, Lubosh! Can you toss us some pastries?" She had to raise her voice a bit to be heard, but the man just sighed as he met her eyes.

"Throw me the sack." He replied. Similar requests weren't anything new from Ixa, and she was lucky enough that everyone helped her whenever she asked. Although, they all quickly learned it was easier to make her a stockpile, or the food wouldn't last.

The girls stayed silent as they ate. Or more specifically, as Sidy ate, otherwise they’d never get to talk.

“So, how soon is soon?” the brunette asked once she put her empty bowl away.

"Soon," Ixa replied and took out the contraption she once used to practice managraphy. She opened it up and began cannibalizing the magemetal channels inside, careful not to damage the wiring. "All going well, evening, or tomorrow if not so well." She continued as she worked.

The conversation continued onto more mundane matters and to practicing the local language after. As they spoke, Ixalia inlaid the wire into the grooves she made in the pencil. Just like she predicted, come evening, she was done. Only the finishing touches remained, like making it look more pretty. But the core product was made and she grabbed the pencil to look at it.

And failed to extract it from the chair. It was stuck.

Crap.

She tugged at it but only succeeded in lifting the whole chair. She started twisting the pencil, careful not to undo her hard work.

Please don’t break, please don’t break. She repeated like a mantra as she slowly removed the pencil from the chair. One agonizing twist at a time.

Finally, it was free. Ha, ha!

She inspected it and pushed one end of the magemetal wire back into a grove where it popped out, but other than that, everything seemed ok. She carefully placed the mana reservoir from her practice tool into the holder where a rubber was supposed to be on a pencil and pinched it tight. Then she connected it and started filling it with her mana, just a little at a time, examining the whole thing for anything out of place.

Leaving it at a quarter charge, she went ahead with testing it. She placed the pencil on her open palm and cast a spell. It was a fairly simple one, the hardest part was matching her mana flow near the end of the casting to a pictogram she made from the wire on the pencil. It was a simple rendering of a farmed field, just some waves and a rudimentary wheat stalk.

As she finished casting, she felt a connection form with the pencil, or more specifically with the construct she created from the wooden sheath around the lead. She held the mana flow of the spell steady but instinctively knew how she had to shift it to create whatever effect she wanted.

Twisting the flow slightly resulted in the pencil floating above her hand, another deformation of the flow and it righted itself. Soon enough, she was writing in a notebook on the floor without holding the pencil.

Yes! It’s alive!

She imitated a famous crazy doctor from a movie inside her own thoughts.

“Wow! That’s amazing! But… what’s it for?” Asked Sidy from beside her and she handed over a bowl. Unlike half a day earlier, this time it was filled with some kind of porridge.

Ixalia didn’t respond and instead turned with a sad expression to look at where Peter was struggling with even holding his bowl up, trying to sip his supper, his clawed hand shaking and his back hunched over. He looked utterly defeated at the moment.

“Oh,” was all that Sidy said when she followed Ixa’s gaze. They didn’t say more as Ixalia got back to finishing the pencil. She was done that evening, but when she glanced at the unfortunate man it was intended for, he looked to be asleep already.

Tomorrow, I'll give it to him first thing in the morning, she told herself as she watched Sidy curl up next to her, both getting ready to go to sleep.