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All she had wanted was to see the Rotunda once more. It was to have been a quiet trip, under the cover of the darkness—just a quick journey to gaze upon the stained glass, and then she would return. It was late in the season, but she had thought that Orangemoon could have spared a few more days until Frostfall’s gales arrived. However, she’d thought wrong.
Not only had an early storm driven her off course, but it had brought her here—to this windy and desolate beach of all places. The light bouncing off the water hurt her sensitive eyes, and the whole area stank of fish. And to make matters even worse, there was a sizeable crowd gathered on the sand. From where she stood at the edge of the sand, she could already catch snippets of their inane conversations—“hey neighbor this” and “I’m so-and-so” that. In other words, she’d stumbled upon Hell.
“Wonderful,” Sheba muttered through her teeth, “all of my favorite things.” And in one place, too! How charming.
While she was displeased, she couldn’t claim that she was altogether surprised by this unfortunate twist of fate. Of course it was just her luck. When was the last time that things had gone right? Ever since Fireball had hit her with the ugly stick, what was it now, three years ago? (though it felt like much longer), life had just gone from bad to worse. Oh, she’d made do of course—she’d finally marked out some nice real estate over in the Heart Caves, where there were no neighbors and rooms full of shinies. She’d even arranged her own little moss bed and tended an equally precious fire beside it to keep her old bag of bones warm. It was a cozy setup. It didn’t hold quite the same thrill as her past life—but hey, who wanted to be a beautiful and glamorous spy who broke hearts and took names when they could be a reclusive hag who harvested crystals as a hobby? How far she had fallen.
Most days, however, she didn’t have to think about that. Most days, she could be content to putter around her caves with her torch, mapping the caverns, tweaking her security system, and keeping her mind otherwise occupied. Most days, she didn’t have to come face to face with Helovia’s it-crowd, the young and the beautiful, and all of those other perky types. If only she hadn’t left her cave.
The one plus to being old and ugly though was that no one she encountered ever really paid her any mind. While once she would have turned heads, Sheba rarely solicited a second glance, and so she turned to go without a second thought. However, as she stiffly pivoted in the sand, something about it seemed to shimmer…and change. Her rheumy eyes widened, then narrowed in greedy delight.
“Well aren’t you something,” she murmured down to the colorful glass, lowering her head for closer inspection. Perhaps the sudden transformation should have perturbed her, but she had grown used to the random occurrences of magic here. Besides, she was already cursed. How much worse could things get?
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