AAAAAAAAHHRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOO!

"No! Not the wolves again!" I drop my new body to the ground and curl into a ball, while instinctively coating my skin in a rough bark.

Fearfully, I lift my head just enough to peer behind me and spot a mangy runt of a wolf mid-leap, its fangs aimed for my neck. My fear is burned away by anger, the bark on my left arm thickens into a club, as the fingers on my right hand elongate into thorn-like daggers.

Lacking the leverage to bat it away, the best I can do is block the wolf's bite with my wooden arm. What happens next is best-left undescribed, it turns out that dying by wolves a few dozen times leads to some anger issues.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!" Coated with my enemy's blood, I release an inarticulate bellow of rage and triumph. The plants around me somehow pick up and amplify the sound until I'm sure that it's audible for kilometers in every direction.

Panting and dripping with blood, I slowly climb to my feet in the middle of a similarly blood covered clearing. Stumbling over to a nearby brook, I set about scrubbing the viscera from my skin. I'm nearly clean before I remember that I have magic now.

Knowledge of mana and how to pull it from where it's pooled in my body fills my head like I've always known it. I also 'know' that normally I would need to use an incantation and somatic gesture as mnemonic devices to help shape the mana properly, but this is a simple cantrip. That, and it's like I've already practiced the spell to perfection.

"Cleanse!" I don't even need to say that much, but it just feels right. Speaking of feeling right, I'm now as clean as the instant I was created... five whole minutes ago.

Stepping out of the brook, I Cleanse the clearing while waiting for the water to smooth out again so I can look at my reflection.

Emerald Green eyes set in features sharp enough they almost look as though they were carved from wood, stare back at me from under short, spiky red 'hair'. My head is actually covered in the blood-red petals of my new namesake, the Sorrel plant.

Standing up, I'm now 190 cm tall, skinny, with vine-like muscles, covered by velvety, light-green skin that darkens at my extremities. Glancing down at my arms, I focus on the actual vines that grow starting from just above the elbows, wrapping around my forearms and the backs of my hands. Tiny ivy leaves blow back and forth in the wind as, with a huge smile on my face, I isolate one tendril on my finger and cause it to rise up and wave about.

Moving down to my waist I can see, starting at my belly button, a garden path made of smaller, even finer sorrel petals. This leads down to, what appears to be, a pair of dark-green bikini briefs covering my 'twig and berries'. But, in fact, is a pair of tentacle-like vines growing from the base of my spine, and the main reason I picked Plantkin. Wrapped around my waist, and tucked between my legs to protect my 'berries' from any hungry wolves.

I focus on the new appendages, unwrapping my 'arms' with a thought. I stretch them out to their limits, and pick up a small branch with one and a stone with the other. They're as long as my regular arms, but only about half as strong.

Wrapping 'things' back up, I then check that my feet and lower legs covered by a dark green, bark-like substance instead of the vines on my arms.

"Nice, everything's just like I set in that where-ever that place was." I grin and hop around a bit to get used to my new body. "Okay, magic check, awesome new body check, let's try the shapeshifting."

It sorta tingles as the ability takes effect, and I can feel the transformation using up mana, but that draw slows to a trickle once it's completed. I've softened my features and lost a good 10 cm in height. Going from a skinny, green Plantkin, to a slim, tanned Human. My petals change into actual hair, but my eyes stay the same striking emerald. The Vines at my waist remain, though the tendrils on my arms have turned into a rather eye-catching tattoo. A quick look at my reflection shows that I now look like what I should have if I hadn't gained all that weight at college.

"Not bad." I turn my head side to side to study my reflection.

"I'll say." A small feminine voice from behind startles me out of my vanity, making me jump over the brook and spin about before landing in a gross approximation of a fighting stance. "Sorry, didn't mean to spook you." She flies back a meter.

Yes, flies. She's wearing an almost sheer white dress that barely reaches mid-thigh, and has translucent green moth wings growing from her back. Aside from a round mop of light orange hair, the woman's features are too small to make out from this distance.

"You're a pixie, yes?"

"Yes, name's Apricot." She flies closer, and I can finally make out her face. It's a cute one too. An oval face with round lips, and a short, upturned nose. Aside from her eyes, she looks just like any other human, hers are slightly larger than a human's and the same shade of orange as her hair and namesake fruit.

"Sorrel." I hold out a pinkie for her to shake. "Uh, how long were you watching?"

"Long enough." She says with a glance at my vine-covered crotch. "Your little shout woke me up. I came over to see what was going on only to find you checking yourself out. I gotta say, you don't act much like any Plantkin I've ever met."

"Let's just say I was raised human." I prevaricate. "This is my first time shapeshifting."

"Congrats. You've got good taste, by the way." She looks me up and down with more hunger in her eyes than that wolf had.

"Uh... thanks." I'm not sure what else to say. If only she was like ten times taller. "Are you out here on your own? I thought pixies lived in big colonies."

"Ugh! Thanks for reminding me." She snorts. "They got tired of my pranks and kicked me out, I've been drifting around ever since. I tried a few other Fae colonies, but the word spread around the Teeth, and no one would take me in."

"The Teeth?"

"That's the big mountain chain to the north." She explains. "It's where most of the magic in these lands comes from." She looks at me like I'm an idiot for not knowing this.

"Ah. I've never really left the woods before." I shrug.

"Eh... whatever. Mind if I tag with you for a bit? I've been bored out of my mind lately."

"Okay, there's a village off that way that I was planning to head towards." I point in the direction that VeeGee implanted in my head.

"Not that I want you to, but you should probably put on some pants before you head there." The deep belly laugh she lets out when I blush sounds much too large for her tiny body. "Too bad all the lunkers don't look like you."

"You're not so bad looking yourself." I return her compliment once I get my embarrassment under control.

"Thanks." She says before landing on my head. "Ooh, softer than it looks." I can feel her rolling around in my short hair. "If you follow the stream, there should be some wild flax you can turn into some rough trousers."

"Thanks." I almost nod, but stop myself in time. "So, the Fae can see magic, right? Mind helping me improvise a spell?"

"What are you trying to do?" She sounds interested.

I reach up and pluck a large leaf from a nearby tree and will it into a uniform cone shape. "I'd like to make this vibrate the air to reproduce sounds, and eventually music." I tested and I can listen to my collection in my head, but it's weird not being able to hear it.

"A musician, eh?"

"I can strum a guitar." I shrug. "But, I've mostly just got a bunch of songs stuck in my head, that I really want to get out."

"Well, this would be easier if you knew air magic, but at least you're on the right track." She then helps me guide the magic to do what I want.

We spent the next couple hours working on the spell as I slowly follow the river, the end result was somewhat tinny and flat. But, that's more from using a leaf as a speaker than anything else.

"Hey, here's the flax," I say as we finally come across it. "I should be able to weave this into a better sounding speaker cone. Clothes would be nice too." I add with a laugh as I catch the pixie checking me out again.

"Yeah, clothes are great." She says dismissively. "But, what was that music? When you said you could play the guitar, I wasn't expecting anything like that."

"Oh, I can't play that well." I wave her admiration off. "I heard that stuff a while ago, and it stuck with me." I start gathering up and processing the flax, luckily it's nearly ready to harvest so, I only had to add a little magic to push it along.

"Yeah, I can see why." She says and starts roasting some flaxseed with magic before somehow eating what must be her whole body weight in them. "If you can make more music like that, then think I'm going to be following you around for a while. Even if you do insist on wearing clothes."

"Are you sure you aren't part nymph?" I tease the perverted little thing.

"Ha-ha. Like you haven't been checking out my ass too." She counters. "Stupid size difference."

"Well, I can shapeshift 'every' part of me," I say with a grin, which only grows wider at her shocked expression. "You'd have to do all the work, because frankly, I'm afraid of breaking you. But-" I don't even get to say anymore before she's flying for my vines, trying to peel them away from my crotch.

"Please." The longing in her voice is hard to hear. "It's been so long, like actual... weeks have gone by since the last time."

"Hahahah." I can't help but laugh, but I'm more than happy to give in to her demands.

***