Thief

She was a good thief; hell she was a great thief. Surely it couldn't end like this.

The moment the mage had caught her, all the doors and windows had slammed shut. Her dagger had flown from her hands with a single gesture of his fingers. And now he was just watching her, laughing as she vainly tried to pick the lock. He begun chanting an incantation, she knew she didn't want to be around for the punch line.

The air around her began to glow and shimmer, her body tensed, the lock pick falling from her fingers as the mages energies pulled her down to her knees. 'So this is it' she thought 'one day your a legend, the next a tale parents tell their kids so they don't turn to thievery' she took a deep breath and held her chin up proudly.

The mage scowled, he snatched the pouch from her belt and tipped from it a shining stone.

"Now how would gutter slime like you possibly know the value of this?" he unfastened a necklace from under his robe, threading the powerful stone to join the others that shone upon it. The thief gazed longingly at the power stones

"Its people like us who'll save humanity from a life under the likes of you." she spat.

He laughed cruelly

"People like you have no place in humanity. I think I have a form more befitting your nature!" The mage clenched his fist around the necklace; the light around it and the thief began to hum and crackle. It crushed her breath, squeezing her thoughts and snuffing any pain from her body. All she could feel was the spell upon her, and it worked fast. As she stared helplessly, her irises swelled till they filled her eyeballs a beady black. Her ears puckered, her nose tip tweaked back as her jaw creaked forward. Teeth drew sharp as her lips were stretched thin. The tips of her fingers and toes were pinched into dark claws, pads rising from her palms. She could feel her body starting to give under the pressure of the magic. Her arms and legs were being squeezed into short fat limbs, the bones and sinew within them warped and woven. Then stretching. Pulling her neck out from her shoulders, stretching her midsection long and thin like taffy, tugging a slender tail from her rump.

And once it had tugged, squeezed and molded her to its will, it released her, leaving the thief slumped over her clothes, breathing fast and shallow. Prickling energy still danced over the creature, coaxing thick red itchy fur to quickly swathe her. The world around swum into view, it seemed huge and slow to her beady gaze. She knew the mage had done his worst with her, but by the gods she was still alive. The mage relaxed, smirking as he surveyed the small scrawny creature that lay amongst the thief’s clothes

"A thieving weasel you were, and now one you shall remain!" he laughed coldly.

The thief glared back at the mage, whiskers twitching irritably. She clearly had very little patience for maniacal laughter. Before he could finish, she sprung, sinking her needle sharp teeth into his hand.

He screamed, violently trying to shake the creature off as she bit down. She clawed the necklace from his palm, dropping as her and it was thrown to the ground. The mage clutched his hand in disgust

"You insolent little..." but in a weasels heartbeat the thief had already bit down on the necklace and flipped onto her feet. She streaked across the flagstones, necklace in tow, zipping under the door and out to freedom before the mage could throw so much as a fireball at her. He flung open the door, shouting curses, but the thief was gone, chitter-laughing through the forest as she escaped with her bounty.

"Bugger" the mage said, summoning a seat and slumping into it. "I fear I have created a monster."

Out in the forest, the greatest thief the kingdom would ever know dozed in a tree. Hugging the necklace of power stones and dreaming of schemes to come.