AN: No chapter next week, sorry! I'm gonna be out of town!

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  You know, when I first stepped into the Fire territory I was a bit scared, but also a bit excited too! I knew that I might die any moment, but there was also that thrill of going on a new adventure again, seeing new pces, and rescuing my (hopeful) boyfriend. It was like being in some kind of action/adventure movie!

  But now that I’ve been here for a while, you know what I realized?

  I freaking hate it here!

  It’s super hot all the time, there’s barely any water anywhere, I have absolutely no idea where I’m going, there’s no one to talk to, and most of all, I’m completely uncomfortable!!! Sure, there’s already that stupid ambient discomfort because I’m not in the Forest Spirit’s territory anymore, but there’s something even worse that’s messing with me: The fact that I have to stay in this tiny little human form the whole time!

  I’m in a new pce, right? And even though it’s exciting, I gotta admit that the pce is still super scary! Apparently everyone from here just naturally knows how to use fire magic, which is already pretty freaky enough, especially in the right (wrong!) hands, right? But from what I heard while I was ransacking all of those sver dens, there’s also supposed to be dragons in this freaking pce! Dragons! Can you believe it?!

  At first I was like ‘Oooh, so cool, those must be tasty!’ when I heard about them (which hey, let’s face it, I’m probably totally right about), but now that I’m actually here, I kinda realized how wrong I was to (only) be excited about it! Who knows how big these dragons that they were talking about are actually gonna be?! The people who were talking about them were being awful reverential when they brought them up, so I’m betting that they gotta be impressive at the very least, and extra-double scary at the most! I’m pretty damn huge in my natural form, kaiju proportioned even, but what if the dragons end up being even bigger than me? What if they don’t even need to use their fire to kill me? And that’s another thing, the fire! If enough skilled people come at me with their fire at once, who knows how my highly-fmmable body would react, right? But a dragon’s fire? There’s absolutely no way that wouldn't torch me, right?! Right?!

  Yeah no, it’s absolutely not a good idea to get myself caught by one of those dragons… at least not unprepared, anyway. And so, I’ve come up with a very simple and effective solution:

  I’m gonna stay small for as long as I can!

  If I’m small then it’ll be harder for anyone to see me coming, right? A giant pnt roaming the fiery pins is definitely reason to call up the dragons, but a small, pretty dy wandering around? There’s no way they’ll think I’m that big of a threat! I’ll be in and out of this pce with Til before they even ever sound the arms!

  And uh, also there’s, you know, another reason I have to stay like this. One that’s much more, uh, reasonable. When I’m in my natural, pnt-y state, I see with my roots, right? Which is amazing, let me tell you! Sometimes I can even see things that shitty humanoid eyes would never even be able to pick up! But uh… I can’t really see colors, or anything that’s not touching the ground when I’m seeing things with my roots… Well, maybe the color thing isn’t entirely true; I can see the magic inside of people’s hair and eyes and stuff, since I’m a magical pnt and all. But anything that doesn’t inherently shine with the color of magic? Nope! Nada! Zilch!

  You’d think that whole ‘I can see the color of magic!’ thing would extend to stuff that’s flying in the air, but oddly enough, it doesn’t. Anything not touching the ground is completely invisible to me and my root-sight! Sure, if a bird or something is flying nearby me I can kinda feel the wind from its wing-fps against my skin (petals), and use that to kinda guess at its shape and location… but at the end of the day it’s just a guess. It’s definitely not a concrete enough sensation that I would feel confident in fighting a big, flying, fire breathing dragon off of it, that's for sure!

  -And that, folks, is where my human form comes in!

  I’m able to actually see things with my eyes when I’m in this fake little human body of mine! It’s a feat of pure genius engineering, honestly. Took a ton of magic and nutrients for me to pull off! If I didn’t have mom’s memories and the time she made her own human form to go off of (and also a bit of guidance from the Forest Spirit), then there’s absolutely no way that I could have done it right! Man, eyeballs are complicated! Really crazy work on nature's part!

  But yeah, I can actually 'see' when I’m like this, and seeing your enemy coming is half the battle! No way a big scary dragon is gonna be able to sneak up on me when I have sight like this! And no way they’ll care about someone as tiny as me when I’m in this form, either! I'll be the ultimate winner here!!!

  Buuuut I’d be lying if I said there weren’t, uh, drawbacks to this whole deal…

  Like the fact that this is completely and totally uncomfortable!!!

  As it turns out, me going into this tiny little compact form is a bit like flexing in a way… Or maybe 'sucking in' would be a better analogy. It’s like I’m squeezing all my muscles, all my fibers, and holding my entire body in one extremely long and harsh flex, trying to keep everything folded down. Wouldn’t anyone feel achy and uncomfortable staying like that for a long time, let alone for a whole day? Wouldn’t it be absolute torture? Thankfully I can’t slip up and accidentally rex out of my flex like a human could, so I’m not in any danger of suddenly becoming big against my will or anything, but the pain is starting to get a bit, um, real. I’m a little worried that I’m in danger of actually hurting myself if I keep this up, you know? I can probably use magic to regen anything that breaks if that really happens, but like, what if I actually can’t? What if whatever happens is something that my magic won’t work on…? It's probably just a silly thought, but for some reason this feels kinda serious...

  Who knows what could happen, right?

  …Well, maybe the Forest Spirit would know, actually.

  Too bad I can’t speak with it here!!!

  Anyways, even if it’s not gonna catastrophically hurt me to stay this way, I- Don’t- Want- To~! So I’ve been on the lookout for some pce that seems retively safe for me to change in. Doesn’t seem likely for me to find one though, since this pce seems absolutely devoid of anything like a forest or ke for me to try and hide in… Not like I wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb with how stupidly big I am anyway.

  Actually, there’s a big bunch of boulders over there in the distance, and it’s starting to get a bit dark… There’s probably a chance that if I got big and bent myself into a ball that I’d look just like a particurly flowery boulder, right…? I doubt anyone’d be wandering through the boulder-field at night anyways, would they? Yeah, there’s no way that anyone would see me!

  …Uh hey, do you think dragons like to fly around at night?

  They wouldn’t, right…?

  Eh, I’m sure I’ll be perfectly fine!

  ~~~

  Alright, well I got the answer to my question:

  I most certainly was not perfectly fine!

  While I was searching for a spot amongst the bounders to finally get big at, a dangerous stranger appeared! A dangerous lizard-monster, as a matter of fact! I figured lizard-y things wouldn’t wanna roam around at night, but I guess that shows what I know, huh? Oh well. Everything's a learning experience I guess~.

  This thing was for sure bigger than me in my human form, maybe even three times bigger! And it was deeefinitely far from friendly, if the fact that it immediately tried to attack me was anything to go off of. Its scales were like a bunch of little shields all over its body, the gleam off of them cutting through the darkness of the night and accentuating every st movement that it made, almost making it look like a fish swimming through water as it came towards me.

  Really, seeing pretty stuff like that makes me a bit sad that pnts don’t grow scales too…

  Are petals kind of like scales for pnts? Nah, I guess that would be a bit of a stretch, huh…? No matter how hard I think about it, I can’t seem to think of anything simir to scales that a pnt has besides bark, and that’s nowhere near as pretty!!! …I guess leaves can be shiny…? But it’s not just about being shiny, it’s about being reflective in a pretty way!

  …Should I get Shui to skin this thing so I can wear it as a coat?

  I suppose this human form of mine could do with some new clothes, couldn’t it?

  Eh, I’m gonna have to kill this thing anyways, right? From the way it’s coming at me, there’s no way this isn’t going to turn into a fight! It’d be a waste to eat such pretty scales, so why don’t I just-

  “Sekina, heel!”

  …Oh? Wow, the lizard-monster actually listened and stopped trying to attack me! So this big-ass thing is really somebody’s pet? Well that’s pretty neat. Lemme guess-

  “I’m sorry, Miss. She’s not used to finding anything but prey out here near the border.”

  Yup, I was right, it’s a lizard person who owns the lizard-monster. Honestly, isn’t that kinda weird though? The two of ‘em are like, the same species! Wouldn’t that be like if I kept a pet pnt somewhere? Oh, wait a minute… Now that I think about it, I think that’s actually kinda what I do with my minions, isn’t it…?

  “...Miss?”

  =Oh right, sorry! I was just so, uh… Surprised! I hadn’t expected to run into anyone out here either!=

  “Yes, it is truly rare, especially when it’s this dark. We lizard-folk are fine with it, but I don’t suppose your kind would have the ability to see in the dark like we do. Would you like to come back to my dwelling with me? It’s just over that ridge there.”

  ‘My kind’, huh? Good to know she doesn’t find me suspicious or weird at all, although it is surprising that she’s being so trusting. Is she just being nice because she thinks I must have something to do with the fire elves just like all the other lizard people did, or is she just actually a super nice person who doesn’t get visitors that much? Honestly, I have a crap ton of things I wanna ask about the whole dynamic between the lizards and the fire elves in general… You think maybe I could learn a few things about it from this overly nice-seeming one? It would be good to know a bit more about how things work around here before I meet with any more of the natives… Besides, if she’s living alone like this, then one lizard person and her pet going missing if things go south here isn’t going to be too much of a problem, right~?

  =...Yeah, if it’s not too much of a bother then I’d love to come along! Please lead the way!=

  Now what kind of backstory should I make up for myself…? Ah, I feel like some kind of spy~!