At The Stake

"They've come for you!" Cidrin yelled as he crashed through the small store. He stumbled and fell and a shelf of glass shattered next to him. "You have to run! They're coming for you!"

The small child still wore the cast she'd made for him and the herbs stuffed within mixed with the oils and tinctures from the broken vials surrounding him. Midia glanced up sharply at his entry and immediately moved to help him back up. She fussed at his arm but he pulled away as he caught his breath.

"No," he told her, standing and pushing with his good arm. "Don't worry about me, please! Just grab what you need and run! I know a way out. Please. They're right behind me."

"Be calm, child," she told him. She stepped behind the small counter of her store to grab her careworn leather sack. She filled it with books and flasks and came back to him. "Lead on but, please, take care."

The young boy bolted and she followed on long, lean legs. Her white hair streamed behind her but her unwrinkled, smooth young face showed not a single concern. She held faith in her goddess and-

Turning a corner, the young boy screamed as he was met with a huge crowd of people. They held lamps and homemade clubs and pitchforks and a few old swords passed down by their ancestors.

"No!" Cidrin shouted. He turned to go back the way they'd come but another crowd filtered through the alleyway behind them. "Don't-"

A stone whistled through the air, striking the child on the forehead. Midia cried out and caught him as he fell but blood leaked from the child's ears and nose and his eyes were unseeing and bloodshot.

"Gods damn you!" she shouted as she lay the child down. "Gods damn you-"

The crowd swarmed her as she raised her arms to cast a spell of retribution. They began to kick and punch her, drowning out her cries until a well-placed strike brought darkness.

--

She awoke to muffled, sussuring conversations and the loud cry of an angry man.

"- did find," the angry man proclaimed. "That her husband developed sores around his manhood. Upon examination, her husband swore they manifested after the witch stared at him cross-wise while passing in the street."

She tried to reply but her jaw ached and her head spun.

"Two days ago!" the man continued. "Mother Els found her child blue and unbreathing in its crib after her cock crowed twice in the middle of the night. A passing guard swore he saw the witch skulking through the alleys at the same time."

Likely the same guard what asked me to murder his wife so he could marry his lover,

Midia mused darkly. She spat but it dribbled weakly down her bloody, swollen lips and chin.

"But last night, dear citizens," he man. "Our beloved queen, may she rest forever at Tylla's breast, fell ill and died. She was in good health but the guard remembered a day earlier that the witch was most vocal when arguing against her majesty closing the orphanage."

Oh, yes,

Midia smiled. She coughed and laughed and blood bubbled from her open lips.

Oh yes, that one

was

sweet.

"See for yourselves!" the man screamed, pointing at her. "She is without remorse! She is found guilty in the eyes of the law and sentenced to burning at the stake! So that our kingdom might be cleansed of her

filth

!"

Only now did she notice the guards holding the torches to her side. She winced at the pain in her mouth and throat and wondered, briefly, if she could swallow her own tongue before the fire bit at her heels.

The guards touched their torches to the kindling surrounding her and then stepped away to join the warden.

She felt the air dance around her, hot and teasing the pain that would follow. It lifted her hair on superheated currents and several people gasped at the simple illusion.

Kesma, hear me,

she whispered with a whistling voice through broken teeth and swollen lips.

Spare me not for I've done wrong by them. Not all they've accused of me but enough. I've worked magic both dark and light, as is your purview, and worshipped you in all your facets. I ask not a boon for me but for Cidrin.

She screamed and nearly choked as the fire licked and charred the skin of her legs. Sweat rolled down her brow, only to evaporate in the raging fire.

The boy!

she tried to yell through the pain.

He was innocent and tried to protect me, knowing they would harm him! Please! He tried to help a daughter of yours and was killed for it! Please! Gods! Kesma! I accept this pain in payment!

A torrent of flame surrounded her, sucking the faint screaming from her voice. Her skin bubbled and popped and sloughed away.

And beneath the skin lay shimmering white scale.

She felt it eating away at her and the pain was more than she could bear. Still, she survived through it despite her prayers turning to curses. In her agony, she begged to be killed before she was completely burned away.

The post holding her cracked and splintered and she fell forward, sure that she would be crushed under the weight of it. It struck her and she roared at the pain of it.

A gout of pure blue and white flame shot out, incinerating a nearby group of people. She looked down and blinked and a second set of eyelids slid down to cover her eyes. Her eyes grew yellow behind the translucent film and her irises compressed into a vertical slit.

"Wot's happenin' in there?!" some voice called out from the crowd.

Midia looked down at her knuckles through the flame. Her fingernails bulged as her hands spasmed. Her nails folded into sharp claws and then pushed forth, sliding from the tips of her lengthening, swelling fingers. She rocked back, flexing her spine up and down. The still-soft scales flexed and parted as wet bone emerged from her shoulder blades. The bone cracked and split, unfolding into separate parts to show pink muscle and white tendons attaching the bones to her back.

The witch screamed. Her throat burned as flame shot into the sky and her teeth melted away to leave bare gums behind. She hung her head, panting as hot blood fell from her mouth to sizzle and mar the ground beneath her.

Pressure bloomed within her chest and she groaned. Her voice sounded monstrous. Booming. Hollow. She felt as if her heart would burst from it but the scales, hardening now, moved as her body expanded. Her spine broke, split and lengthened and she anchored herself with her ivory claws.

"Something's happening!" a woman screamed. "She's- something's not right! I can't see-"

Midia flapped her bony, bloody wings as they continued to spread and develop. She slammed her hands beneath her and the ground shook from the impact. The fire had spread inside of her body - inside of her bones. It coursed through her, burning and singeing every fiber of her being.

With a hiss, her tongue slipped out and forked, the skin cleaving in twain as it flickered in the air. Tasting their fear and uncertainty. When her tongue pulled back, it slid over the tips of her fangs emerging from her widening jaw.

As her body expanded, her breasts stretched flat. Fat melted away as the skin withdrew and scales flowed to cover her nipples.

The raging fire could no longer contain her bulk and the crowd screamed and panicked at the sight of her.

"Don't!" The warden screamed. "Don't panic! It's a trick of the- It's-"

Old, deep magic came to her with Kesma's blessing. Her scaly nostrils huffed steam as her skull expanded and filled with the gifted lore.

Thin skin emerged from the tips of her wings. It raced in a line down to her shoulders and she flexed, blowing out the fire with one powerful gust of air. She rose briefly into the air and her white scales shimmered like a prism struck by the sun.

She sang and the very air vibrated and trembled with the spell she wove.

The warden stumbled and gripped his head with a yell. He shook and cursed and pushed the nearby guard away when he reached to help. The guard came for him again and then stepped back as the warden's ears elongated into thin points.

"Help me!" the warden screeched as his skin began to take on a green tint. He shrunk into himself as his jaw widened and grew deep. He spat teeth in the face of the guard and then grabbed the other man, shoving him to his knees. "I can't- Stop!"

The warden stepped out of his oversized clothes and the crowd gasped. The white of his eyes became bloodshot and then completely red. His words faded to high pitched screeching as he grabbed his misshapen, mushroom-headed cock. He forced it between the guard's lips and began pumping while his white, pasty body turned a sickly emerald shade. The man's pot belly slammed against the guard's chin and his feet swelled as his toenails cracked and split and expanded.

With a high-pitched scream, the warden exploded in the guard's mouth and the other man's eyes widened as the creature's spunk filled him. He gagged and finally found the strength to pull away.

Sharp fangs filled the guard's mouth. His nose bulged and turned hooked and long as the round edges of his ears grew to long points.

Screeches erupted in the crowd as Midia continued to grow. Her tail, already longer than her human body, swished behind her, crashing through the wooden platform which had contained her. It shattered into splinters and thick chunks of wood that then imbedded into nearby buildings. She raised her wings to dry in the overhead sun and the thin skin turned blacked as she flicked ichor off of them.

She eyed the changing humans around her, laughing as they assaulted each other and spread the transformations. Her voice rumbled the buildings surrounding her and windows cracked.

A young woman tore her dress from her body to expose green, shrunken breasts with black nipples. She threw herself on a nearby man, pulling and shredding at his clothes while crying and apologizing until she was spreading her tiny, blackened pussy lips around his cock. He shoved at her but she bit at his fingers, chewing one entirely off at the joint. The man's scream turned to a shrill hiss as his lips split and widened to show an unnatural maw. The panic in his eyes faded to a manic lust. Soon after, his cock shrunk and he pulled one of the woman's long nipples into his mouth to suckle from her.

A passing duchess backed her way against her carriage as her guards changed. One of them, already small and green and lost to human speech, tore her dress while the other struggled with his changes. The smaller one wasted no time in shoving his odd cock between the lady's pink legs.

"Don't do this," the woman cried as the creature pumped against her. "Please. Remember. Remember who you are-"

"Do you even know my naaaaame," the still-human man hissed. His eyes were reddened and he gripped his cock. "Bitch? Do you even know who I am? Ten years! Ten years and now you'll choke on my fat cock you-"

The man's voice turned high-pitched as his tongue lashed out, long and thin to wrap around her throat. He pushed her down and straddled her face but she was already shrinking and welcoming his attentions. Warts emerged from her face as her rounded nose pressed out to bump against the man's cock.

"Fuck me!" she screeched as her eyes turned red. She flipped over, slapped her ass and spread her cheeks to show her black asshole. "Fuck my dirty ass! Use meeeee!"

The changes continued in a wave around the dragon. They took each other without a care for what hole they abused.

Midia watched with interest as a young virginal maid pulled and yanked and screamed at the green tail growing from her white, pale ass. She screamed louder as a man forced himself on her and they changed together until the man broke away to take another man's virgin asshole. The girl lashed her tail around another woman's throat, holding her in place as she forced her pussy down on the other woman. Beneath her, the woman's face cracked and widened and her drumming hands slowed until they gripped the woman's ass and tail.

"Oh gods, oh gods, make it stop," a woman begged. She crawled toward Midia with her clothes in ruins. A tiny green tail wriggled above her wide hips and her pussy lips, slick with the excitement she was denying herself, were turning a deep shade of black. As she shrunk, her lips swelled and expanded and her scent caught a nearby changing male. His hook nose took in her smell and he drooled. She stared up at the approaching man with horror. Slowly, bit-by-bit, the horror turned to sneering excitement and she offered herself to him, spreading her thick green thighs while her scaly tail arched up to touch her neck.

Midia roared and her subjects paused in their orgy. Fights broke out from unsatisfied lovers but were quickly quelled as they turned their attention to their mistress.

The dragon took flight with a quick prayer to her goddess. She would circle the city and ensure none escaped alive.

As one, with her unspoken direction, the goblins fanned out with plans no more solid than one word:

chaos.