"Be right back, my love," Syraleth purrs, slapping Pip's frozen hips with lazy affection before she vanishes in a curl of smoke.
She reappears directly before the team, heels hitting the upturned earth hard enough to send a shockwave rippling outward, dust and grit rolling off her in a visible ring, and then her body begins to change.
Bones crack and reset with a sickening crunch~ beneath skin that crawls and shifts as her frame grows taller and thicker with muscle, her horns lengthening into curved, wicked spires, every powerful beat of her wings shedding raw, crackling magical essence into the air like sparks off a forge. Her gown of living smoke tears itself apart and reforms around her into something heavier and armored, wrapping her new frame in shifting black plates that seem to drink in what little light remains, glistening like ink, the seams pulsing faintly red with every heartbeat beneath them.
