In the name of all that is good and beautiful, what is THAT?! An earsplitting shriek splits the cool air as your horrified eyes catch a disfigured reflection staring back at you from the shallows of the river. Oh, it was unspeakable! You had approached the water eagerly, ready for a morning drink and the reassuring sight of your dainty face, but instead, the image of an ugly hag had greeted you. It was all some horrible trick! Yet another stolen glance confirms your worst nightmare: the face that stares back at you is your own. Admittedly, it’s a very wizened, disfigured face…but there is no mistaking it, as much as you want to. It looks as if you have gained twenty years in a night, and you haven’t aged gracefully at that. Tears of rage and disgust pool in your eyes, and you slash at the water viciously with your horn. You don’t know how or why this is happening to you, but somehow you know that this is all his fault. And then, slowly, as if in some horrible, twisted flashback, the flaming stranger’s words come floating back to you: you will leave here…altered…in some way. “YOU,” you growl, nearly choking on your own anger, “YOU did this to me.” You look around, half-expecting to see the fiery creature come sauntering triumphantly out of the woods to watch the fun, but he is nowhere in sight. If this is what it’s going to take to receive his gift, then he can go…well, nevermind what he can go do. You’re going to go demand that he take it back.

You spend the better part of the day hauling yourself up the mountain, cursing at him in the old tongue all the while. It takes you until nearly sundown to reach the top of the mountain, for this body seems not only to have gained the appearance of a haggard old crone, but a touch of arthritis as well. Still, you manage to hold your head high as you drag yourself up the last incline, rage fueling you as you march into the field to find it…empty. A scream of frustration pierces the twilight as you fully realize the trick he has played on you. There is to be no getting out of this body unless you can find him. “ Fine,” you mutter under your breath as you search for a place to sleep. Tomorrow you will begin the weary descent down the mountain, for it is much too late today. “If you want to play hide and seek, monsieur, I’ll find you sooner or later.”