Ktulu's singularly worded question couldn't have been more appropriate, though Lakota was loathe to answer it truthfully. She'd awaited this moment for seasons, and yet she feared somehow she'd be found lacking in some manner by the God that had always favored Ktulu. Whatever could be thrown at her, she'd take it in stride the best she could. Damn those who thought Ktulu didn't love her, or that Lakota could ever be an unfit mother. She would show them plainly that they couldn't be more wrong, and then kick their asses into the flames of the Heart for ever daring to doubt her and her mate. Gritting her teeth with a flare of determination, taking courage from it, she nodded tightly. They were not left waiting for long, and the pull of magic in her body caused a momentary flicker of apprehension. As she was transformed, the blue reached out in a last touch of her beloved's skin, taking strength from it as her bones were mended and frame distorted. It wasn't painful, as this was no punishment but a trial, but it felt odd and wrong wrong wrong in every possible way.

The first thing she felt was the terror of no air, the odd sensation of...were those fucking gills?! But swiftly she was plopped into the water, and though the sensation was far different from breathing in her normal form, at least there was no danger of impending death. Blinking stupidly and breathing too harshly, more out of panic than any real prolonged lack of air, Lakota realized that she'd been turned into one of the most humiliating forms. She was a fucking fish.

The gleam of the smooth red stones below her was far more prominent, but as she fearfully tried to use her new fish eyes she saw that her mate had been cruelly changed into the predator of her own form. Instinct clenched in her little fish belly and she awkwardly maneuvered her new body into the shadows, clinging to the silky tops of the stones in an attempt to conceal herself. Was it possible for a fish to frown? Because if it wasn't, Lakota was seriously going to have trouble. The instinct of her new form told her to fear her mate, to hate her even. She despised it. This was no test! This was a punishment after all. The Poisoner had only ever feared her mate once, when she was infected and wraithlike, but the scar upon her normal form's spine was proof that they had overcome it together. Forgiven what Ktulu had done.

When she returned to normal, and she would if only by sheer stubbornness and force of will, she'd let the God of the Earth know exactly how she felt about this. This was cruel, to make her fear the one she loved so deeply, to want to avoid and hate her to preserve her own life. Especially when Lakota would give her life without a second thought or moment of hesitation if it meant Ktulu could go on living. The second anger came from being, of all things, a fish. Couldn't they have at least made her a mouse?! That was prey, too! Fish were fucking awful. She'd better have the most colorful fucking scales, damn it.

Can she even talk as a fish? She certainly tries, has to attempt to talk to Ktulu, to try and find that connection she longed for already. And even then she can't help the bitterly amused words that spring first to her...ew, fish lips, Gods don't let her think about that ever again in her life. "Really? A fucking fish? Worst imagination ever," she...glubbed? Even as her stomach did awful twirls at the mere idea of forcing the attention of her the predator onto herself. She could do this. She could fight the instinct. Nobody could make her fear or hate her mate against her will. She'd die before she let that happen.