All Magic Comes With A Price || Open
One raspy, desperate breath at a time escaped Tamara as she struggled to keep her slowing heart beating. The rope around her wrists formed bloody rings, which had dug further and further into her rough skin the longer she fought to free herself. Her faded eyes glanced down at her tail, a long shimmering tail that was just far enough into the water to exist, but not far enough to quench her. She could feel herself shriveling away, despite the cold pool that she was only partly immersed in. It was torture, pure torture to be so close to the very thing you needed, but not be able to get to it.
She had fought so hard to free herself from the laughing pirates, who in their drunken state thought it would be amusing to tie her up and leave. And there she hung, suffering the same fate as so many others before her, drying up with every slow minute that passed, gasping for life. She fought so hard. But it wasn’t enough.
Time dragged on, minute after minute, hour after hour. Until that moment, Tamara had always considered it a gift to have the magical capability of having either legs or a tail. Once she learned how to use her legs, the transformation opened up a whole new world of possibilities for her. It allowed for new places to explore, learn, and of course, hunt. But now, as her bare chest heaved in desperate search for air, she considered it the greatest of curses. For it was this magic that was keeping her alive. It was this magic that was delaying her death and making her suffer so miserably. If she could exist in only one form, she would have been dead hours ago. Her suffering would have been quick. She would have been freed again.
But no, her misery dragged on, escalating to a new desperation she had never felt before. She wished for death. Oh, to end it all! To suffer no more and feel the end of it near. She had been told once by a strange man that all magic comes with a price. In her arrogance, Tamara had dismissed the odd saying, believing that magic only produced power. It was true, her magic had produced power in her, power that made her deadly and feared. But it was here, at the end of all things, that Tamara had finally understood the words of the strange man.
Here, at the end of all things, she had finally found her price.