The screams cut off the moment the latch of the heavy wooden door clicked shut.

Out before her was a dim hallway lit by the occasional floating orblet of light. Numbered

doors lined the grey stone walls. The cool moist air licked at her bare skin. The gentle

slap of her bare feet against the cold flagstones worn smooth with the passing of time

echoed ominously. She shifted. Pulling her wings, tail, and horns inward. Pulsing tattoos

retreated. Ears rounded. Her right eye turning from inky black to milky white. Once at

the opening of the hallway, she stopped. Eyes locked with an Anorian man who seemed

stunned to see her. Right, I am still naked.

"Thou might wish to check door number fourteen. A ritual did not fare well there."

"Huh?" asked the man intelligently. Well kid really. He couldn't have been out of

his teens yet.

"Door fourteen," she repeated.

"Fourteen?" he asked. Eyes trying so very hard to take in her full visage.

"Yes. Do hurry."

"Oh, ok." He got up from his seat, hugging the wall as he passed her as if

bumping her would destroy a priceless artifact.

"Doth these robes belong to thee? May I taketh them. I find myself quite cold."

"Uh. Yeah. Please. And. Uh, s-stay here ok? Please?"

She gave him a warm smile and a bow. He bolted down the hallway occasionally

looking back over his shoulder. She didn't wait. Snatching the robe from its hook and

pausing only as she passed a small mirror. No wonder the boy had seemed so stunned.

Her human form looked nothing like an Anorian. She forced her face to widen,

becoming rounder. The color in her left iris darkened to a deep brown, almost black.

She pushed the upper area of her eyelids out until they made an attractive epicanthic

fold. Made them more round. More elegant. Not perfect. She grit her teeth. Perfection

would have to come later. Actually, this was Anoria after all, so... She took just another

moment to push out two small cone shaped horns that protruded from her temples.

Horns are so pretty. A slight darkening of the skin and she had to go. The only other

adjustment she could afford was a slight boost in height to accommodate the robes.

The guise of an Oni-Kai may not have been the best decision. Of the four mortals

she had come into contact with, all of them had been human. It was possible this was a

human only building. It was possible that Oni-Kai were a lower class of citizens. Shit, it

was possible Oni-Kai had gone extinct in the unknown amount of years she had spent

imprisoned. That said, humans breed like rats and spread like wildfire, so seeing no

humans would have been far more out of the ordinary. Walking tall and with purpose,

though with her ever present limp, she passed several humans who didn't give her so

much as a second glance. Maybe humans were the lower class now?

She found her way through halls and massive chambers mostly by following the

flow of people and the increasing natural light. Ah, there are Oni-Kai here. She adjusted

the angle of her horns to be more anatomically correct. Then she was in the courtyard.

Vibrant golden sunlight raining down like a flood of glory on her skin. Its warmth a

reassuring melody that the mortal realm had not changed nor had it been a distant

dream. The air sweet and thick with blossoming floral scents she could only vaguely

recall. The blue sky with its fluffy white clouds, the hard packed earth beneath her bare

feet, the greenery of grass, clover, and trees. It was ecstacy. It was life. It was freedom.

Forced to follow the crowd and scarcely noticing, she exited the courtyard via

massive iron gates. Their thunderous clang breaking her out of her reaveraly. The

building she had just walked out of was massive. Built like a palace with three main

towers interconnected by the lower floor. Their great white walls gleaming in the light of

day. Their elegant red colored and sweeping pagoda roofs capping the several story tall

structures. The whole complex encased by a large square wall painted white with a red

roof and thoroughly decorated with gold and jade reliefs of arcane symbols, great

beasts, and powerful phrases of great importance to those who could read them.

It was the sound that struck her more than anything however. Yes, there had

been noise in the summoning chamber, but she had been preoccupied by the situation.

Now she stood in the center of a bustling street filled with the to and fro movements of a

hundred or more mortals. A great cacophony of talking, laughing, the friction of fabric on

fabric, and the slap of footwear on pavers. How long had it been since she last heard

these mundane things? How long had the steady dripping of water been the only sound

past her own breathing? So much sound. So much noise. Not just people, but water.

Falling water. Now that she noticed it she could hardly hear anything over the

thundering roar of fathomless amounts of water crashing into the depth of yet more

liquid.

Her fingers gripped the railing at the far end of the street. She pulled herself up

onto the ledge not far from where an overly intimate couple stood holding each other

and speaking in quiet flowery prose. To her right, the street swooped out wide like a

massive arm carrying a great load that was the city below. To her left, water fell from a

great multitude of pools to plummet to the populated lower terrace, creating a roiling

mist that engulfed the ramshackle buildings at the bottom of the fall. Shacks built on top

of shacks at haphazard angles that jutted out over the water, sprawled out around the

base of the falls. The buildings became larger and better built the farther out she looked

until they became a grid of city blocks, canals, streets, and bridges. Towers rose

majestically into the air. Mortal made ponds hosted floating markets. Everywhere there

was greenery and trees, some in full bloom with pedals of red or white or pink.

On the edges lay large terraces filled with perfect mid sized wooden homes

surrounded with perfect fences and filled with the perfect assortment of trees and

shrubs. The terrace she was on consisted primarily of large and ostentatious buildings.

Many painted in red and white, but a few were built of dark or light stone and had the

ominous aura of temples. Following the cascading water upward to the topmost terrace

produced a building that was both bridge and palace with white washed stone, painted

red walls, and sweeping dark colored roofs. Massive and commanding was the

mansion, dwarfing its neighbours that surrounded it, all of which vibrantly displaying

themselves as the upper class to the city they looked down upon.

“Thou!” she said pointing at a random mortal. “What is the name of thine city?”

The man stared up at her with mouth agape and eyes wide. “Ah, ah,” he snapped

into a deep bow, causing the others around him to bow as well before moving past.

Odd. I do not recall these mortals being this polite.

“The city is Lianzhen, my lady.”

My lady? Oh I could get used to this, she waved her hand, dismissing the mortal.

“That shall be all, thank you.”

He bowed twice more before hurrying away. She turned to the cascading waters.

“Lianzhen. Lian, zhen. Cascade City.” She let out a disappointed sigh. “Zero

points for creativity.”

She jumped down from the ledge and let the flow of bodies, like water, take her

down hill. Most traveled in finery of silks and finely woven cottons. Some in far less

extravagant clothing, roughspun hemp and linen. Men and women's kimonos both plain

and printed, elegant cheongsam worn by elegant and noble looking ladies, changshan

both common and sophisticated, and the long dark coats of civil servants. Once in the

lower tier, much of the finery diminished in quality or sometimes altogether. Fancy

cheongsam giving way to simple shirts and skirts. Changshan being replaced with basic

tunics. Soldiers both male and female, more so female oddly enough, marched in linen

garments more closely resembling gambesons though still with the Anorian flair that

saturated everything. They wore conical steel helmets and carried odd looking

shortspears with offset spearheads and vaguely familiar contraptions at their base. At

some point the machete must have replaced the sword. Gone was the fancy armor and

curved blades she had expected to see.

An Oni-Sen smith worked at an anvil. His red tinted skin dripping with sweat from

the heat of the furnace and his long elegant horns pointing toward the overhead beams

of his open air smithy. Perhaps I should mimic that race. Such attractive horns. Long

and thin, gently curved and white though a bit off balancing. A kitsune woman was

selling vegetables along the street. Her human face in juxtaposition to the furry tail and

high fox-like ears. Pretty golden irises and hair the color of harvested wheat. Humans

everywhere as always. The many shapes and sizes and colors. So boring. The Oni-Kai,

much like their Oni-Sen cousins, but with much smaller horns, less pointed ears, and

more human colorations. She altered her body as she observed. Reducing her breast

size slightly to hit the happy medium between the too small and the too big. Narrowed

her hips. Curved her horns more. Adjusted her cheekbones. It would take time of

course. Proportions were just as important as individual parts, but perfection demanded

time in front of a mirror.

She stopped. Eyes locked onto a particular motral. Their clothing and cargo

unimportant. What mattered was the ash white hair. The red irises. The black horns that

swept back along their head, wholly unlike the Oni-Sen. And of course their tail. Long

and thin with a spade shaped point. Akumajin. So pretty. Or they would have been if

they weren't a male. She could always switch to an Akumajin. Or maybe that would be

too obvious.