Commission for  noorinstuff

Noorin wishes to have magic but gets much more than what he bargained for...

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The night is cold, which shows when Noorin breathes. His glasses fog up quickly from his warm, rapid breath making it harder to navigate the foreign forest. “I sure hope this is the right way…” He looks around, occasionally taking off his glasses just so he can see something even if it’s blurry. Eventually, though, he runs into a hut that appears to be crudely made from wood and stones. Light pours out of the hut’s window making it clear that someone is home. Noorin carefully approaches, putting his glasses back on and stops. Many thoughts race through his head. “What if this is the wrong house? What if she hurts me? What if she can’t do what she’s rumored to be able to and I look like a fool?” His hand shakes as he reaches up to the door and knocks, then immediately he regrets this as he hears stirring from inside. He doesn’t get a chance to think much on it before the door opens.

“Yes, how can I help you, dear?” The dragon looks down at Noorin, flashing a mischievous smile.

“I-I-I had a request.” Noorin buries his face in his hands, feeling embarrassed to ask.

“Of course! Come in, come in, you must be freezing!” Rune steps aside and holds the door open for Noorin.

“O-Okay!” Noorin looks up with a forced smile and heads inside. His heart is going a mile a minute as he finally looks up and around at the cozy hut. There’s a fire going in the living room with two lounge chairs near it. Bookshelves fill the hut with many books, and in the back is a kitchen that smells wonderful. A mixture of spices and marinating meat fill the air with wonderful smells. Noorin smiles as he feels much more at home as he heads towards one of the lounge chairs by the fire.

“Yes, yes go ahead and make yourself at home my dear!” Rune closes the door and sits in the other lounge chair across from Noorin and smiles. “Would you like some tea?”

“Oh! Yes, please!”

“Of course, be right there with it.” Rune gets up and heads back into the kitchen. She fills a kettle with water and holds it in one of her clawed hands and it nearly instantly heats to boiling. Noorin watches with amazement as the kettle goes from cold to steaming in the span of a few seconds. Rune pours some water into a couple of mugs, then adds packets of tea. She hums a tune to herself as the tea brews, then she removes the tea bags and brings them back to the living room, giving one to Noorin.

“Thank you!” Noorin immediately sips the tea and realizes his mistake when his mouth burns and tears well up in his eyes, but he forces a smile. Rune chuckles at his mistake, then cools down both of their teas to a more reasonable temperature.

“Now then, dear, tell me, what was your request?”

“Well…” Noorin chuckles nervously as he takes another sip of tea. This time it gets a genuine smile from him as he enjoys it at the much more reasonable temperature. “I heard you can do magic and I wanted to see if you could give me magic myself!” Noorin cringes slightly, hoping his request was not too much.

“Oh, of course! That wouldn’t be a problem at all! I can even teach you how to use it!”

“Really?” Noorin sounds genuinely surprised, he had expected to be laughed out of her home.

“Yes yes…it just requires a little ritual. Just let me know when you’re ready to complete it!”

“Well…I’m ready now! I want to do it!” Noorin puts his tea aside and stands up quickly, practically giggling with excitement.

Rune chuckles at Noorin’s enthusiasm. “Alright then, calm down and follow me.” Rune leads Noorin into another part of the living room where there is a intricately-designed circle. “Stand here, and we’ll get started!”

“Okay!” Noorin hurries into the circle and stands right in the middle and looks at Rune with a big smile. “Ready!”

“Excellent, just stand still, dear.” Rune begins chanting words that sound very foreign to Noorin. If he had to guess he’d say it was Latin but in reality, it was a language much more foreign than that. One that has never been spoken in this realm outside of Rune. Swirls of magic appear around Noorin and fly around his body and the circle glows. Finally, Rune holds out both hands and aims them at Noorin, palms out, and he’s hit with a surge of powerful magic. The sheer power of it nearly knocks Noorin over, but he manages to remain standing as his body slowly begins to grow taller.

Noorin’s clothes feel just a bit tighter, and he smiles down at himself. “It’s working! I can already feel more powerful!” Rune simply smiles as Noorin continues to grow taller, and then it slows and stops as he grows a few inches up to 5’9”. Noorin then feels an odd pressure in his chest as it swells and he looks down. “Wait, what’s this?” Rune remains silent, only giving a knowing smile in return. Noorin reaches up to feel his chest. It feels soft, smoother than before and…rounder. His chest continues to swell as his skin becomes softer and his body takes on a lither shape. Noorin looks up at Rune with a look of fear and confusion. “What’s going—eep!” He stops as he hears his voice has changed, becoming much more feminine. “What’s going on! I just wanted magic!”

“Well, my dear, some bodies are better equipped to handle magic than others!”

“But…” Noorin is interrupted by a strange feeling in his pants, almost an emptiness as if something there disappeared. As he looks down, he notices his skin looking a little looser than it was before in some spots, particularly his arms and hands. The soft parts of his chest seem to be sinking as well. He feels his hands and notices that he feels much weaker than before, when he rubs his hands he feels like they could break much more easily. As he glances at a mirror he notices his hair is solid grey and in short curls. His nose has become longer and wider, and spots on his face appear, growing into rough warts.

His tight normal street clothes all darken and become longer, shirt becoming very long and heavy like a thick, cotton robe. His pants darken and legs merge together to become a long, black skirt. Noorin then sees dark cloth enter his vision and a new weight on his head as a black, pointy large-brimmed hat appears on top of his head. Another thought pushes its way into his head. The name “Noorin” seems more and more foreign to him, as if it was a friends name, then a stranger’s name. A new name quickly takes over before he can resist, “Samara”

“I didn’t want this! I just wanted magic!” Samara pleads with Rune, as Rune simply shakes her head.

“You’ll have magic my dear, just you wait!”

“But…” Samara, now realizing that she’s an old woman soon feels stronger again. Her body looks much like the same old lady that she saw in the mirror moments ago, but inside she feels much more powerful. Samara smiles, flashing her old, dirty teeth that look like they haven’t been brushed in years, and a look of fear flashes across her face. “M-my face, my teeth! I’m ugly!”

“You make a fine witch!”

“W-Witch? You made me a witch?”

“Of course! I felt it would be more appropriate!”

“Well…okay I guess…did you have to make me so old and ugly?”

“Nope!”

“B-but…I can’t be like this!”

“Well, you are! And you’re going to have to get used to it!”

“But why! I refuse!”

“Because, there’s no going back!”

“I’m…stuck like this?!? Even you can’t change me?”

“Nope! The magic is yours and it can’t be taken back, and the form you’re in when you’re granted magic becomes your permanent form!”

“But…I don’t want to be an old ugly witch! I wanted to just have magic!”

“Sorry! That’s the rules, I can’t change them! But now that you have magic maybe you can do like I do and have a little fun with people!”

Tears well up in Samara’s face and the strength she felt earlier begins to fade. Before long she feels like a regular old woman, but still feels the magic within her. She sits down and begins crying.

“Aw, dear, you’ll get used to it! You have magic now! You can do whatever you want! As long as it isn’t changing yourself…”

“But…I’m weak!”

“You don’t need to be strong; you have magic!”

“But I’m ugly!”

“Would you rather be a familiar?”

“N-no…” Samara says, sniffling

“Well, then, either you get used to this or you will become my familiar!” Rune says with an evil laugh.

“Okay, fine!”

“Good, now then, you should learn how to control your magic otherwise you’re not going to last long as a witch. Oh, and, you’ll have to find your own place to stay!” Rune holds out her hands and blasts Samara with another wave of magic and Samara disappears from Rune’s hut with a flash. Samara blinks a few times and finds herself in the middle of the forest, and it’s raining. The rain quickly begins to soak her hair and clothes.

“This is just great…I’m stuck as an old, ugly witch and now I’m in the middle of nowhere!” Samara begins wandering around, on the verge of tears again. “It’s raining and I don’t even know where I am!” Samara looks around for some sort of sign but only finds trees. She starts looking around for some sort of shelter but finds none, she can’t even find Rune’s hut anymore. Who knows, she may be nowhere near Rune’s hut at all. After wandering around for nearly an hour, rain thoroughly soaking her clothes, she finally blasts a tree with magic out of frustration and it explodes with splinters and chunks of wood going flying everywhere. She jumps back, startled at what she did.

“Did…did I just do that?” She looks down at her hands, and then realizes what sort of power she now possesses. She closes her eyes and concentrates, and hits another tree with magic, only this time instead of exploding into chunks the tree cuts itself into a nice pile of planks. Samara smiles and hits the pile of planks with another blast of magic, and they begin moving around and rearranging themselves. Another hour of this and Samara has a nice, small wooden cottage in front of her. She hurries inside, dripping water all over the wooden floor and starts taking her hat and robe off.

It isn’t long before people start wandering by Samara’s own hut, mostly on accident but a few people who stop by come looking for something. Help with a problem or a request. Samara is all too happy to help them out, though they don’t always get what they ask for, but always get what they need.

Before long, Samara finds it hard to keep up with the magic and finds herself tired and exhausted when a man comes by lost in the forest looking for help finding his way back. He introduces himself as Reskao. Reskao explains that he was hiking in the forest and got lost, and simply wants help finding his way back home. Samara smiles and agrees to help. Of course, home to Samara is much different than home to Reskao. Samara begins casting some magic and Reskao finds himself getting smaller and fluffier. A orange-and-white tail swishes its way out of his pants and before long he’s a little red fox sitting in a pile of his clothing. Samara scoops Reskao up and puts a nice red collar on him.

“Yes, you’ll do nicely…you’ve found your way home now, little one.”

Reskao yips at Samara angrily and tries to wriggle his way free.

“But, my friend, you wanted to find your way home, and I helped you! You’re home now, just maybe not the home you had in mind! Maybe you should be more specific in your requests! But of course that doesn’t matter now, because you’ll make a fine familiar!”