I looked at the clothes on my bed and scrunched up my tiny face with distaste as my mother stuffed my swim trunks and towel in the beach bag and then reached for the shorts and t-shirt. I didn’t like any of the clothes and I resisted her attempts to dress me as only a stubborn child could. “I dun wanna wear that boring stuff. I wanna wear a pretty dress an’ a swimsuit like you an’ Maddie.”

Maddie came rushing into my bedroom smiling brightly and wearing a big white sunhat that obscured her long red hair and a white sundress that seemed a match for my own, except that the flowers on hers were a dark emerald color. “Beach! Beach! Beach! Let’s go!” she exclaimed exuberantly.

“Wait…I must be dreaming,” I thought. “I remember this day and the dresses that Mom and Maddie are wearing. It didn’t happen like this.” I was four years old and my mom was going to take us for a day at the beach. I told my mother that I wanted to wear a pretty dress and a swimsuit like her and Maddie but she told me that I couldn’t, that I was a boy and that boys don’t wear those types of things. I got upset and I was inconsolable for hours. It ruined the whole day and I think that it was after that was when I started feeling empty inside.

“I should enjoy this, I get to make a new childhood memory, a happy one this time,” I told myself. The pleasant dream was probably due to the feelings of happiness and security that I was feeling from falling asleep wrapped up in Kara’s arms. I mean, despite our captivity things were going right for me for the first time ever, and the girl that I was crushing on liked me back. Okay, I might be stuck as a Naethari but I was seeing a lot more positives than I expected about that, and I was a girl. I finally knew what was wrong with me all those years and now that problem was in the past. A tail instead of legs was a small price to pay.

The dream was starting to fade as I started to wake up and I tried to just hold on to it for a few more minutes. It was such a nice dream, Mom and Maddie were there, and at least in my dreams, I could still have legs. And so I resisted, trying to eke out as much time as I could get running down the beach and feeling the sand squish between my toes alongside my sister. I savored the movement and the sensations until I realized that I couldn’t breathe.

There was a tingling sensation all along my skin as my eyes shot open but that, the release of weight and pressure on my forearms, and the distant distorted sound of something heavy hitting the floor of the pool were all secondary at the moment. I needed air! I frantically pulled myself from Kara’s embrace and kicked my way to the surface as fast as I could.

I started sputtering the moment that I broke the water’s surface, desperately gasping for air. It was only once I was breathing again that I realized that I had kicked my way up. A moment later Kara, Jenny, and Kieshala all broke the surface to stare at me. They all looked so big. ~ Well, this is an interesting development, ~ the latter said as she easily picked me up in her arms and swam me to the side of the pool to place me on dry land.

~ Naiya? ~ Jenny asked uncertainly as she reached out to pinch my little toes in disbelief. Even she seemed huge to me right now and she was easily the smallest of us, being only eight. It wasn’t them though, it was me. Looking down at myself, I found that I was the same three or four-year-old human version of my girl-self that I had been in the dream.

~ Yeah, it looks like Naiya, just way younger and human and since I don’t think Pierce is a prankster, it’s got to be her. Her hair and eye color haven’t changed but omigod! She’s so adorable! ~ Kara exclaimed as she pinched my cheeks.

“Could you pwease shtop tha’, Kawa?” I asked with a sigh. It was weird having my potential girlfriend treat me like a kid. Even as I was complaining though I felt that strange tingle all over my skin again. Over the next minute, everyone got rapidly smaller until they were all back to their regular size, at least from my perspective, and instead of tiny little legs and feet I once again had my tail and fins. ~ I guess that I’m not a Soulsinger after all. ~

~ I still believe that you are, Naiya, you merely have two aetral. ~ Kieshala insisted. ~ It is probably why you have been having such trouble with your magic. I have seen plenty of Shifters before, my older sibling is one, but the weave of their magic is different than yours. For future reference though, you could have looked human without shifting your gills away, you merely need to picture human legs in place of your tail. You could probably change your hair color and other features as well. I am surprised that you could manage that complete of a change though. ~

~ I wasn’t exactly thinking about what I was doing, Kieshala. I was dreaming and it was so nice that I didn’t want to wake up. Then I woke up like that and I couldn’t breathe, ~ I pointed out.

~ At least now that you have used one of your abilities you will have a starting point for training your magic. You will not be able to hold a shift for more than a few minutes at first, most likely. Once you can use it consciously you will have to work on duration, whole body shifts, and partial shifts, and eventually, you will need to expand the range of creatures that you can use as a basis. ~ Kieshala replied.

I looked at the sunset-hued Naethari dubiously as I asked, ~ And just how do I do that? ~

~ To expand the variety of creatures that you can use as a basis, you will have to physically touch one of them. You have had physical contact with Natalie before, so naturally, that allowed you to have use of the human female base form. The fact that you remember being a human child is likely what allowed you to appear so young, though that was probably pushing your size limit. My sibling is exceptionally gifted and they can only increase or decrease their mass by roughly three quarters. You were close to that. As for the rest, it will come with calling on your magic, remembering how it felt to change, and practice. ~ she explained.

~ I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we may have a problem, ~ Kara interjected as she pointed to where I had my hands clasped in my lap. ~ I mean, it’s great that Naiya can shapeshift and all, and it might give us an advantage later if she can get good enough at it, but what are we going to do if Pierce or some of his goons decide to drop by for a visit and notice that Naiya has lost her cuffs? ~

I looked down at my arms and realized that the metal bracers were gone, they must have slipped off while my arms were so tiny. Patches of magenta scales covered the outsides of my forearms with a slit that apparently hid razor-sharp spines tipped with venomous barbs that popped out even as I thought about them. The three spines looked to be made of bone with sharp tips and edges. The toxic barbs at the tips were so small that they were barely visible and the bone blades were connected to each other and the inside of the slit by lilac-colored webbing that matched the color of my fins and almost made the connected spines look like a dragon’s wing.

Having them out made me feel safer somehow but as nice as it was to have them unrestrained, Kara was right, this could pose a problem. ~ Shit. If we want to keep our advantage, we can’t afford to let Pierce or his goons find out that one of us can slip out of our cuffs. That could be our ace in the hole in case things go bad and we need to improvise an escape before my family can extract us. ~

That was when we heard footsteps outside the room and, just to be safe, Kara practically threw me back into the pool. Fortunately, it was just Natalie with our breakfast and the moment that she had the cart inside and the door was closed behind her she called out, “Good morning, girls. Did you have a good night? I hope you all enjoyed the chocolate.”

“It was awesome, thanks, Natalie,” Jenny said exuberantly as she climbed out of the pool with Kara and Kieshala behind her. We had all enjoyed our little treat, especially Jenny. Even Kieshala seemed to like it, saying that she had never tasted anything like it before. She had given half of hers to Jenny though after seeing how much she had enjoyed the two that she had. It was sweet of her and Jenny deserved to be spoiled a bit after what we had all been through. No child should have to endure what she has.

“Thanks, Natalie, that was the best night that any of us has had in a while. I… uhhh… may have made progress on the whole magic thing this morning too, but there’s a teensy problem,” I admitted self-consciously, unsure whether I should leave the water.

“I had a great night last night too, Naiya. Your sister… wow,” she said, her grin practically making her glow as she set out the buckets for us. I really didn’t want to hear about that so it was a good thing that she caught on to my nervousness as I said the last part and turned to look at me in concern. “What’s the problem, Naiya?”

“Well, I have an unexpected second ability and I may have accidentally shapeshifted out of my cuffs while I was dreaming. I almost drowned myself too,” I said with a blush as I displayed my arms.

Natalie’s eyes went as wide as dinner plates. “What? How? Shapeshifted?” she sputtered as she stared at my forearms and their deadly spines.

“Yup, she turned into a human kid version of herself, maybe four years old, and she was freakin’ adorable!” Kara offered boisterously. “Turns out she’s not just a Soulsinger.”

~ I would advise even after we have made our escape and returned to my world that you keep your additional aetral a secret from others. Share it only with those that you trust. Introduce yourself as Naiya Soulsinger only. Not all clans live in peace with one another and it gives you an advantage if you face someone hostile that you cannot charm with your voice for some reason, ~ Kieshala suggested.

Meanwhile, Natalie had come closer and was looking at one of my vuhac in fascination. “So that’s what those cuffs were covering up. Are they for defense?”

“No! Do not touch!” Kieshala called out, causing Nat to yank her hand away. ~ She must be careful, Naethari are immune but even a scratch would be enough to kill an adult human. If she got a full dose from all three spines it would kill her quickly, within moments. A scratch would be a slower and far more painful death. ~

“They’re… umm… really sharp and the barbs at the end are poisonous. Kieshala says that even a scratch could kill you and it would not be a pleasant way to go,” I relayed to our caretaker.

“Definitely for defense then,” Nat said with a grim expression, backing off a bit more. “Can’t you just shapeshift back into them?” she suggested uncertainly.

“The first time was an accident,” I countered as I hopped up onto the side of the pool to eat. I was staying near the water though in case any unexpected guests showed up. “I have no idea what I’m doing and it’s probably going to take me a while to figure it out.

Nat looked pensive for a moment before replying as she considered the problem. “Okay, as soon as you’re done eating, head down below and bring up the cuffs and the phone. We’ll have a look at the cuffs to see what we can do and I’ll exchange the phone in the bag for the fully charged one.”

As soon as we were done eating I did as Natalie had asked and fetched the bracer-like cuffs and the waterproof bag with the phone in it. The other phone was the same model though it was purple instead of pink so we knew that we were switching out the correct one. As for the cuffs though, I wasn’t sure that we would be able to put them back on easily. They were meant to fit tightly and we had noticed when trying to find a way out of them on our first day of captivity that they were secured on the underside of each arm by three small padlocks.

Natalie got some bobby pins from her purse and tried to pick the padlocks but sadly she didn’t have much luck with that. My hands wouldn’t go completely through the cuffs either, and I really didn’t like the idea of dislocating my thumbs to try to slip back into them. Since Kieshala wanted us to practice with our magic anyway, eventually we decided to get back in the pool to see if I could manage to summon my aetral for long enough to try to shift my hands or something.

As I’ve mentioned before, I suck at meditation and introspection, so it came as no surprise that I wasn’t having much luck. I wasn’t sure how long I had been at it but I was starting to get extremely frustrated when we heard the doors to the pool room open. My heart rate sped up further at the sound. Natalie was already in here with us doing stuff on her tablet and there were five sets of footsteps. The blood froze in my veins as I heard Natalie asking as casually as she could manage, “Good morning, Dr. Harris. What brings you all here to visit this morning? And what’s with the stretcher?”

“Mr. Pierce wants us to… run some tests on the adults,” he replied in a clipped tone that made it sound like he was not happy to be there. “Call them up and as soon as they’re out of the water we’ll sedate them all. This won’t take long and we’ll take them to the lab one at a time for safety.”

Shit! This was not good. Kara was looking frantically from me, up to the surface, and back to me again. I was vaguely aware of Natalie arguing with Harris as I tried desperately to focus on shifting my hands so we could get those cuffs back on me. “Come on, deep breath, Naiya. You can do this.” I felt for the weave of magic inside of me and started to coax it out toward my hands as Kieshala had suggested and concentrated on that tingling feeling that I had felt when I had changed. Wait… I could feel it; my hands were tingling. I just needed to focus on changing them into something that we could easily slip the cuffs over.

I pictured in my mind, my hands changing into small and flexible fins, I was a part fish so I was hoping that I could at least manage that. They were changing but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to hold it for long and as tense as I was I was fighting to have to keep my vuhac inside their pouches, which wasn’t helping my focus any. I heard Natalie whistling and my concentration broke in my panic, just as Kieshala and Kara thrust the cuffs over my hand-fins and into their former positions on my forearms.

I let out a bubbling sigh of relief as the tingling subsided and my hands returned. A brief inspection showed that the locks were properly on the underside of my arms, just like the others. ~ Omigod that was a close call, ~ Jenny sent as she breathed a sigh of her own. ~What do we do about those jokers though? ~

~ The only thing that we can do is go up and get sedated, ~ I said with a frown though none of us were too happy with the idea. ~ If we don’t, they’ll think that Nat doesn’t have as much control over us as she’s letting on and Pierce might decide that she’s not worth it. We need Nat where she is, who knows what our next caretaker would be like. Probably not trustworthy enough to entrust with our secret or kind enough to want to help us. ~

“Melody! Lorelei! Nixie! Marina! Come on up sleepyheads!” Natalie called nervously from the edge of the pool as she looked down at us. I figured that she had probably come to the same conclusion that I had.
Even Kieshala had to agree that we couldn’t let that happen. We had to play ball for now. So, we did the only thing that we could do, we all rose to the surface and pretended to be sleepy but happy to see her as we looked toward Natalie and gave the goons a clear shot at us. When the dart hit me in the shoulder I only had a moment to silently curse Pierce and his minions before everything went black.