Ursula

I'm Ready

Ursula sat in her room, concentrating on the small broken fish skeleton lying in front of her on her shelf. She remembered what Skalandra told her to do, to envision the object and what you want to happen. Skalandra said that envisioning was the key to inanimate transformation. The lines and creases on her forehead got deeper and deeper, as she willed the magic out through her fingertips. Then all of a sudden, she felt a spark run through her and end at her fingers. It felt almost as if she had accidentally brushed up against an electric eel, except it was painless. Just a jolt of electricity. She opened her eyes and watched the pile of bones. Nothing happened. Ursula frowned, disappointment flooding her face. Just as she was about to swim away though, she saw a twitch. The head bone had just moved a little. She turned back around and studied it, but it didn't move anymore. Frustrated, she unfolded her tail from beneath her and quickly crossed the room to the small skeleton. The small current her tail caused had moved it forward a bit, and when the delicate bones tumbled over each other, something amazing started to happen.

Each individual bone floated up and started moving around, arranging themselves back into the whole skeleton. When they were all in place, the skeletal fish stayed still, and Ursula quickly remembered the next part of transformation process for sea animals. Give it something to build a body off of. She quickly darted to her desk and grabbed a small stone jar filled with seal blood. She had bled the seal herself, a week ago. The cold temperatures in her room stopped it from going rancid and smelling. Lifting the jar she opened the lid ever so slightly, just enough for a drop of blood to squeeze out. She let it drop directly above the skeleton, and the blood dispersed and surrounded it. Whispering the chant, the transformation began to take place almost immediately.

"Sil gath soon ven, felse zemb teel."

The blood thickened and became opaque, the first layer of flesh. As she continued the incantation the fish body solidified and eyes filled the hollow indents in the skull. As she whispered the last words, the fish, now a deep red with a golden sheen, twitched to life, and swam forward. It looked confused for a moment, then it darted to Ursula and buried itself in her hip-length hair. Ursula smiled, no longer a smile of amazement, but instead a confident, powerful smile. This was her second successful fish today, and she had already re-animated several hermit crabs and seagulls. This fish was harder though, because it wasn't just any fish. It was a spying fish, one used on hunts to bug the enemies. Since the hunt was tonight, she thought she would surprise Skalandra with the fish, to really show her how helpful and capable she was. And then, maybe Skalandra would finally teach her the harder spells, the important ones. Because she was ready. As she had been for a long time.