Ves'ra felt like she was about to burst. The lynx lost its taste yesterday, so she had to hunt something new on her own. She killed one of the two-legged lizards, which were tasty but nowhere near as good as the lynx.

She remembered the first time she'd felt like that - just after eating her first wyvern - and managed to solve the problem by binding her energy into a rope. Well, she could do the same again. Ves'ra returned to the lair of the lynx and checked her protections. Finding nothing out of order she sat down and slowly sank in meditation. She felt her energy, coiled into a rope, yet again ready to burst into her body.

She had a problem though, she'd need three times as much energy to create the next layer of ropes - a good deal more than she had. There was another problem - she felt she'd have a problem if she did that, that her body wouldn't be able to withstand that much energy.

She'd have to dive into the unknown - she didn't know what would happen if she let the energy free on her body, but knew she'd have a problem if she didn't. She was too young to die, so she took control over her energy and uncoiled the rope of energy.

She didn't let it leave her control though even as her energy-veins felt like they would burst at any moment. Instead she slowly released the energy into her body, still under her control and observed its reaction with her body.

Nothing happened at first, but as she slowly increased the energy she started to feel something, the more of the energy she released the clearer the feeling got. Once half of the energy had entered her body the feeling grew into something else, an awareness of her body and self, and she knew she was able to influence it. She was slowly seeing her essence, her true self she realised. As she released the rest of the excess energy into her body her feeling of self increased, and she felt something odd.

A part of her didn't fit into her body, it felt too big, constrained by herself. That part wanted to take another form, one not herself. It was really uncomfortable. As all of her energy entered her body she started using it, first she increased both strength and thickness of her energy channels, that was a must. That took about a third of the total energy, but she felt that actually changing herself wouldn't be as hard, especially if she followed the strange feeling.

Ves'ra thought about herself, did she really want to change herself, or was she influenced by something not her? Yes she did. She wanted to be stronger, faster and be able to walk for longer.

How did she achieve those things? Humans. They were able to walk for days, were stronger and faster. Did she want to be a human then? No! She did not.

They had several good options speaking for them, but in the end humans were still prey.

Now, with a plan in mind Ves'ra set to change herself, she focused on walking for a long time instead of high explosive strength. She willed her hands and claws to be more slender,adding another digit to be able to influence the world better. Slowly her image of herself changed, growing slightly taller as her spine straightened up. Her tail lost some of its width, becoming longer and more slender. She lost her ability to sprint on all four of her limbs, but she didn't do that very often, and thought it a good trade.

As she looked at the new image of herself she wasn't happy, her head didn't fit at all, she wouldn't be able to look down on her feet, the long snout would have to go. She concentrated on her head, slowly shortening it as well as adding a neck, allowing a larger movement of her head than before. She improved her sight, sense of smell and hearing. Her mouth needed to be adjusted, it didn't fit the head overall, so she shortened her teeth and moved them back, adding a flap of flesh to hide them in.

She was happy with her head, it looked good, even her other self seemed satisfied. She took another mental step back, and her legs and arm were too wide for her new slender frame, so she adjusted those too, moving her shoulders back a little in the process.

Finally she was happy with her new appearance, a lot more humanoid, about a meter and forty centimeters tall. Her body, arms, legs, tail and head were more slender, made to move large distances. She now had actual hands, though they still ended in claws, so she’d have an easier time using anything human made and could actually craft with her hands and not with magic.

She looked good, elegant, except for one thing. Her scales were too large, they didn't fit the new body at all, so she made them more uniform and smaller. It took quite some time to be happy with the scales, in the end even the biggest scale was only as big as one of her eyes, but it completed the look she wanted to have.

Still, all these changes didn't even take as much energy as changing her energy veins, so she had to change more. Ves’ra took a deeper look, searched for the part of herself that was responsible for coloration and both changed her base color, adjusting it to a light brown with a little red instead of the while it had before, and connected the part that could use the color of things she ate to her brain, making herself capable of changing her color at will.

She looked deeper again, increasing the power of her muscles while keeping their weight, she didn't want to be heavier, or she’d never be able to fly with Arvog. With that thought she strengthened everything else, her bones, tendons, organs, scales and hide. She focused on the two most important parts of herself last, the brain and her heart.

She strengthened her heart, more than the other organs, adding a small cavity inside, something to store her core once she learnt how to create one. The brain was the only place she allowed to get heavier.

She concentrated on getting smarter, improving her memory and thinking capacity. Most importantly though she increased the amount of energy that she could influence at any one time.

Just those last two changes cost half of the energy she still had, while improving her muscles and inner body nearly cost the rest. Ves’ra thought about what to do with the rest of that energy, it wasn't much, just enough for a minimal change. She thought about humans again, and how human females stored fat on top of their torso. She added the same, two round slabs of fat - it never hurt to store excess food.

Ves’ra viewed all her changes once again, adding small improvements here and there. Once she was finished she released her control over her energy and could feel it start working on changing her essence.

She’d need a lot of food to evolve into her new, better form. Before falling down in exhaustion, having used up all her mental strength by controlling all that energy for such a long time, she sent a thought to Arvog, she asked him to get food, a lot of food.