In a distant realm’s dead future, a lone warrior stood before a monstrous dragon. Then she crumbled, falling to one knee and clutching onto her sword’s hilt as though it were a cane.
“No... I was so close. So close from saving our world…" As her words filled the air, her eyes brimmed with tears. "Father… friends… forgive me…”
The warrior's name was Lucina, and her future’s fate had just been written. She gritted her teeth and looked to the beast above herself, a snarl on her lips and a foul curse in her heart.
“If only I were stronger…” The woman choked out, her blue hair swaying as she sobbed with dismay.
Woman. How odd someone just past the age to be called a girl could be called a woman in those times. In a way, she welcomed her death, but she would still fight to her last breath. Lucina, the last bearer of the Brand of the Exalt, the last Lady of Ylisse, and perhaps the last survivor of her once-fair nation would not allow herself to fall in shame.
Her foe was the one to thank for the circumstances; for the desolation of her world, the death of her friends, and the death of her family. Grima, the Fell Dragon. His very name sent hate through her veins, and she glared up at the beast, steeling her veins and tempering her soul with resolve once more.
“Finish it, you monster!” She bellowed defiantly, her eyes narrowing as she raised her blade towards her tormentor; to the bane of her existence and the subject of her most intense hatred. Though this was surely the end of her journey, she felt solace in meeting her fallen comrades once more.
“YOU HAVE SPIRIT… LITTLE LORD…” The beast boomed, its voice seeming to echo not just around the devastated land, but also within Lucina’s very head.
The blue-haired warrior shuddered at the feeling of his foul words, a revolting sensation that seemed to envelop her mind. Tears slipped from her eyes, tears she hadn’t realized she’d been holding back. Her infallible courage waned before the dark presence being imposed upon her.
Lucina took a deep, shuddering breath to try and steel her nerves, looking back up to find the massive, horned dragon before her, its maw still shut. A moment passed as the beast remained yet unmoving. Why wasn’t it burning her with its foul expiration?
“I THINK… I SHALL KEEP YOU... PERHAPS AS A PET… PERHAPS A CONCUBINE... OR SOMETHING MORE FITTING…”
Its words cut deep into Lucina, and she gaped openly in horror. “W-what?” She stammered, her eyes wide as she began to contemplate the meaning of the creature’s words. Her heart began to hammer in her chest as a spike of despair entered it.
It had always been some comfort to her that her life would come to an end should she fail; that she would not need to bear the guilt of outliving everyone she’d known. And yet the dragon Grima seemed to be planning otherwise, providing her a fate she had not prepared for.
The dragon flexed one of his claws with a look on its face that Lucina was beginning to realize was a smirk. Then, before she could react, the foul beast flicked an orb in her direction, a small round stone that pierced her chest, burning into her very heart.
Lucina screamed, from pain and from the horror that something was beginning to affect her body - a strange and twisting sensation. She recognized the object as something she’d seen many times before in the hands of her fallen Manakete friend, Nah. It was a Dragonstone, an artifact that the Manaketes used to shift from human to dragon form.
The same magic that Lucina had seen change her friend before was beginning to twist its way along her body, but she was no Manakete and this shouldn’t have been possible. “H-how?” Lucina screamed as the pain began to subside, the burning in her heart diffusing through the rest of her body.
“THERE ARE MANY THINGS YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND… LITTLE PRINCESS...” Grima boomed, its voice just as loud in the woman’s brain.
The last two words in particular sent a pang of doubt into the woman’s thoughts, and she looked up to the dragon as her skin began to crawl with a new sensation. “M-mother?” Lucina’s voice wavered as she asked the question, her thoughts swimming with emotions she hadn’t felt in years.
Her mother, Robin, had always used to call her "Little Princess". Nobody, not even her Aunt Lissa had called her that. Her heart clenched as she looked up to the beast with unsettled eyes trying to make sense of what she was hearing.
Then her vision snapped down, focusing on her feet as they began to ache madly. She whimpered with horror as her greaves began to buckle and reshape, her feet expanding within them violently. Then, with a loud crack, the metal and leather split to reveal a glimmering blue-scaled pair of feet, still oddly human.
Their form didn’t last for long, however. Another cramping sensation pulsed beneath Lucina’s feet, as though she’d stretched them poorly and had strained both of the muscles. She whimpered as her toes began to bulge one at a time, each digit swelling with what could only be draconic growth.
Toenails lengthened into ungainly and sharp claws; toes cracked and popped as they tripled in length. And worst of all, similar noises began to sound from her hands, her palms swelling just as her soles had; her fingers ballooning into cruel claws.
“N-no!” Lucina screamed, beginning to hyperventilate with horror as she felt the icy grip of fear clench about her heart. The changes didn’t even allow her to come to terms with this latest assault to her body, jumping instead to her head.
“IT WOULD SEEM YOUR BODY IS RATHER ACCEPTING OF THE CHANGES - MUCH LIKE YOUR MOTHER'S WAS WHEN SHE BECAME MY VESSEL.” Grima’s voice boomed once more as Lucina recalled the disappearance of her mother… Who she thought had died alongside her father.
“Wh-nnn!” Lucina’s words were cut off by a surging ache in her face, her jaw growing out into a snout; her nose becoming just a pair of nostrils at its tip. Tears pooled in her eyes as she watched the peachy skin of her face draw out into the hard, smooth scales of a dragon; and her teeth sharpened in her new muzzle as she took a deep breath through her changed nostrils.
Her ears ached too, as did her tongue. Both expanded to fit her new form, her ears becoming a pair of large, scaled fans at either side of her head even as her tongue lengthened to fit her new maw. She shuddered at the sensation of having an utterly alien face, but her question had to be asked.
“Wh-what really happened to my mother?” She asked, tears pooling in her eyes even as they drew to slits, distorting the Exalt’s Brand in her left eye. She could feel the damp moisture of tears slip down her scaled face, and she wiped them away determinedly, hating the sensation of her form changing.
“SHE OFFERRED HERSELF TO ME ON THE TERMS THAT I'D SPARE YOU AND YOUR FATHER.” Grima said bluntly, its voice tinged with a dark mirth. “SHE KNEW I'D GO AGAINST MY WORD, BUT DESPERATION IS A COMMON TRAIT SUFFERED BY HUMANS.”
“M-monster!” Lucina spat, groaning as she felt the changes begin to course along the rest of her form. Apparently once her extremities had changed, the transformation had decided to sweep across the rest of her body.
Her skin shimmered beneath her clothes, and she groaned as she began to feel oddly slick, the fabric and threads at odds with one another. The woman scratched at her breastplate in discomfort, her claws tearing deep furrows in the metal.
“AND A MONSTER IS THE VERY THING YOU'LL BECOME.” The Fell Dragon replied flatly.
Lucina glared up at her foe angrily, stomping one of her changed feet even as her form began to expand, her clothes tightening around herself. Right now, only one thing mattered: the death of this monster that had consumed her mother’s body and spirit, and she would accomplish this regardless of what she had become.
The blue-haired warrior flicked one of her transformed hands to her blade, hoping that the blade’s awakened form would be able to damage the monster. But the second her clawed hand met the sword's hilt, a burning sensation seared up her arm, her every nerve screaming in pain. The exalted blade, Falchion, had rejected her.
As she dropped the blade in despair, the transformation accelerated up her right arm, growing muscle and bulk tearing through her vambrace with ease. She looked in shocked horror at the blue-scaled limb, her heart clenching as she realized that this was her fate, to become like the very beast tormenting her.
The woman wheezed in horror as despair began to sink into her heart, the culmination of tragedies finally breaking her spirit. The revelation of her mother being possessed by her fell foe; the conquest of her land; the realization that this transformation was in a way her birthright… The weight of her fate came crashing down upon her, and she realized just how helpless she was.
Her left arm expanded to match her right, in time with her legs and chest aching, constrained by her ever-tighter clothes. She let out a pained moan of distress that drew into a sigh of relief as the clothing split along her body, tearing it to shreds.
She blushed madly at her revealed body; thinking that at least her draconic form would safeguard her modesty. At least, that’s what she thought. But one look down to her chest shattered this illusion as she realized that not only were her breasts on full parade, but they had grown even larger, covered in a milky cream shade.
Lucina gasped, moving her clawed hands in an attempt to cover her exposed nipples. Unfortunately, her action didn't have its desired effect as her naked body was still almost completely on display. She began to almost cry out in irritation; then snapped her muzzle shut in an attempt to regain her composure.
“I won't succumb to your power!” Lucina growled lowly, looking defiantly to Grima.
As if in response to her proclamation, her shoulderblades began to ache. The woman whimpered and rolled her arms with irritation, only to gasp as her hips violently cracked, sending her to all fours. She yelped with distress, only to scream as her calves snapped, an extra joint forming halfway through them. She whimpered and shut her eyes tightly at the feeling of her legs beginning to lengthen to accommodate her new form, raising her hindquarters into the air and leaving her with an almost equine posture.
This pose seemed to be exactly what her shoulderblades were waiting for, as they began to stretch out just as her legs had. For the first time since she’d started to transform, Lucina began to feel extremely unsettled.
Until this point, the changes had been focused on altering existing features; not adding to them. Her two new appendages felt so strange, new muscles and nerves settling along her body. She shuddered and flicked her new wings apprehensively, feeling them catch the air beneath her form gently.
“BEGINNING TO ACCEPT YOUR NEW BODY?” Grima bellowed smugly.
Lucina didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, she looked back to her wings, a tremor wracking her form as her neck stretched out, as if to make the motion easier on her body. The woman wanted to reject this latest change to her form, but she had no knowledge of how to resist it.
She hated what was happening to her body, but she had to find a way to adapt and use it against her enemy. She watched the pair of batlike wings grow thick and tough membranes, the azure fans resisting the air behind her as she beat them gently. As she watched each new wing grow a dactylic finger, she believed she would be able to take flight against her foe.
The woman tossed her hair out behind her head, shuddering as she realized that her longer neck made foreign sensations with its new musculature. She couldn’t focus on this though; she still had to find a way to defeat Grima in her new form.
The magic that was changing her must have read her mind once more, because her tailbone began to ache as much as her shoulders had. With a startled gasp, Lucina realized that she was about to grow a tail, and her blue eyes widened, only to squeeze shut a moment later.
Unlike the growth of her wings, the forming of her tail was a slow process, her spine snaking out from her posterior, becoming a long thing with blue scales as rich as her hair. Its underside was the same light cream of her belly, and its tip looked to have knobby growths along it.
Lucina brought her tail up to her nose to inspect it, inwardly hating how easy it was to control her draconic body; almost as though it was second nature to her. Beneath her gaze, the growths began to sprout, lengthening into sharp spines that each looked as lethal as the tip of Falchion.
Lucina took a deep, anxious breath at that; glancing up to Grima with anger. If the Fell Dragon wanted her to become some sort of monster, then she would fight it as one all the same. She chided herself for ever thinking that the beast might have housed some remnant of her mother, realizing that the woman had died long ago.
“YOUR METAMORPHOSIS IS ALMOST AT AN END… LITTLE DRAGONESS.”
Lucina ignored the beast’s mocking words, instead bracing herself for the final changes; the last indignities for her to suffer. She had already been stripped naked; been torn forever from her father’s blade. After those indignities, this transformation could do nothing more to hurt her.
Such were the thoughts that passed through Lucina’s mind, and she was indeed correct. Her head ached sharply as horns began to force their way from the sides of her head, long and swordlike appendages that she shook apprehensively.
The instinctive toss of her head seemed to awaken a final change through her form, and long, scaled fins slid from her spine, dancing along her tail and gracing it with a means to stabilize her, should she choose to take flight.
“GOOD… YOU ARE NOW FIT TO SERVE ME…” Grima thundered, his voice seeming a little quieter now to Lucina’s draconic ears. She glared up at the beast defiantly, prepared to fight it to the last; to be killed or imprisoned, but never tamed.
“Lucina…”
Another, almost musical voice filled the air, and the changed woman froze before committing to her final charge. It was a female voice, but not one she recognized. How could it know her name?
“Perhaps I am too late… But this cannot be the way your world ends…”
The voice spoke again, and this time brought with it a strange tugging sensation, centered around the core of her being. Lucina let out a small gasp; her eyes widening as light began to fill her eyes, a pure white sheen she’d not seen since the rise of Grima.
“NAGA, YOU SHALL NOT DENY ME THIS VICTORY!” The Fell Dragon thundered, beginning to race towards Lucina even as she felt herself begin to fade away, as though she was being pulled into the light.
“Steel yourself, Exalt… Your adventure has yet to begin. Though your form has changed, you must fight in my name once more…”
“N-Naga?” Lucina whispered through scaled lips, realizing that as insane as it sounded; she must surely be communing with the goddess herself. Then the bottom of the world fell out from beneath her, and she emerged into another realm entirely, into a forest full of Risen with four humans she’d never thought to see alive again.
“Aunt Lissa… Uncle Frederick… Father… Mother…” Lucina whispered, spreading her wings wide and swooping towards an undead fiend that was trying to kill a young cleric. She bared her claws and roared loudly, slamming into it with a triumphant cry.
“Time to change fate!”