Chapter 6 Izzy
IZZY
I couldn’t quite reconcile the woman before me being my grandmother.
As I’d said, she looked more like a younger sibling with a body straight off a porn set.
It seemed she liked showing off her in-bed-fooling-around body — to quote my friend Tala — all the time.
I should not be staring at my grandmother’s chest. Yet it was hard not to…
when she made Dolly Parton look like a willowy waif of a woman.
And it wasn’t just her porn star look which baffled me, but the whole vibe she gave off.
She came across like a wide-eyed, “innocent,” ingenue sex-kitten, not a respectable grandmotherly woman.
Her practically see-through robe and faux-blasé attitude toward near-nudity was hella confident.
I applauded any woman who could pull that off.
But it was distracting as hell and not fit for a grandmother.
The cognitive dissonance broke my brain.
“I don’t suppose you’d consider putting some clothes on too?” I said with a heavy sigh. It seemed like nothing was going right for me tonight.
“No,” she replied as she crossed the room to me, then turned to Safir. “Shoo, shifter, the adults need to talk.”
Safir nodded, bowed low, and left the room.
“I love how you shut him down, by the way,” Grandma purred. “Very dominating. Do you like to dominate? Is that your thing?”
“Does everything revolve around sex for you?”
“Pretty much, yes,” she said with a grin. Then her features hardened a little. “You’re right, though, it’s time I spoke to you as your grandmother, but I don’t think you’re going to like it?”
“Oh?” I didn’t much like how anything was going in my life right now, so… Lay it on me, Grandma.
She slapped me. I barely felt it. Perhaps that was my new elven heritage kicking in, or she hadn’t meant it to be hard, just a wake-up call.
“Get your act together, woman!” Grandma hissed. “You’re all over the place. You can’t keep your form stable. You know how to boss men around, great. Glad we’ve mastered that, but it’s clear you haven’t mastered yourself.”
Huh, not what I’d expected, but not awful either. It felt a bit more grandmotherly to be scolded than it did for her to be flouncing around in next to nothing.
“I’m well aware of that fact. It’s the entire reason I’m here to see you,” I muttered. When we’d arrived, Safir had quickly outlined to Olinara what had happened and what we needed. Then she’d left while I’d scolded the shifter.
She sighed and motioned to a long divan.
I sat as she took a seat nearby.
“Last week, when Safir called to tell me you’d shown up in this world, I figured this day would come, but I didn’t think it would be this soon. Trouble seems to follow you everywhere. But then… that’s something you’re going to have to get used to if you want to survive in this world.”
“Your empathy is overwhelming,” I snarked.
She raised a brow. “Suck it up, princess. From what you’ve told me, we don’t have time for empathy, just action, correct?”
“Correct,” I said with a sigh. “I need to get my act together and learn my powers… like yesterday. So please teach me all the nymphy things I need to know. Then I need to find an elven tutor we can trust to teach me about my elven side,” I restated, clarifying the situation.
“All within two days, then I have to get back.”
“To your bonded shifter?” She shook her head. “That’s asking for trouble, but I suppose you didn’t have any say in it, did you?”
“Nope.”
“Then let’s get things started, no time like the present.”
“Could it wait till after I’ve slept? I haven’t been to bed yet tonight.”
“No. I’ve got a trick which should help you with your form. If you learn it now, hopefully it will sink in while you rest.”
I shrugged. “Sure, fine… though…” Something had been bothering me. “What should I call you?” I asked. “Grandma? Gram-gram? Olinara?”
“Oli will be fine,” she said with a smile. “If you want to make me feel old, than Grandma Oli.”
“And please call me Izzy,” I said since Safir had introduced me as Isolde.
She nodded. “Izzy, sounds good.” Her smile grew. She leaned forward and took my hands. I tried to ignore the shot of cleavage that gave me. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Sorry I didn’t say that earlier.”
“And to meet you as well,” I said. “Now… what’s this trick you mentioned?”
She squeezed my hands.
“Answer me this: who do you want to be?”
I blinked, brow furrowed. “I just want to be me, but right now I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
“Okay then, what version of you do you want to be? As a nymph, you can be whoever you want. You are an elf and you are a nymph. You could be either or both or neither. What do you want?”
I shrugged. “I want… I want to be human and normal and uninteresting.” With everything that had happened over the last few days, that seemed safest, even if a part of me knew it wouldn’t be practical.
“I never thought I’d hear a descendant of mine say they wished to be uninteresting. But if that’s what you want, we can arrange it. However, you cannot be human here. Humans are rarely seen in the fae realms, you’d stand out even more as a human, far from uninteresting.”
Fair point.
Oli sighed. “Perhaps I rushed in too quickly. Let’s back up. Forget about who you want to be and tell me what you want… in general.”
I sighed and told her about my dream for this world. I wanted to change things, to get rid of the institutionalized oppression and bring freedom and equality. As a nymph, I couldn’t do it, but as an elf, maybe I could change things… and as a royal, my dream seemed even closer to reality.
Oli nodded. “Understood.” But then she sighed heavily.
“You could be an elf,” Oli continued. “But claiming you’re a royal right away, might be problematic. People have been searching for residual royals for years and found none. You’d need proof. But even then, the people who’ve been looking for royals are mostly trying to kill them, so…” She grimaced.
I knew most of this, but I let her go on.
“And as a half-blood, most of the elves would shun you rather than accept you as their queen. So… here’s what I suggest. For now, be a nymph, lay low, under the radar, and simply be yourself. Take time to gather followers before you make your claim on the throne.”
Seemed reasonable.
“Learn what you can, as quickly as possible,” she continued. “Bide your time. Wait for the right moment to rise up and fight the tyranny of the elves.”
I nodded.
“But…” she hedged, “you can’t do any of that… as no one special, as some uninteresting nymph or human.”
Yeah… on some level, I’d known that.
“So… I guess I’ll be a nymph for now,” I said. “Someone who can be uninteresting and lay low, under the radar to those in power… but who can also inspire those around her.”
Oli smiled. “Now we’re getting somewhere. This should be simple.”
Simple sounded good.
She stood and with our joined hands, drew me up with her.
“Calm your mind, get comfortable, shake out your body a little, relax.”
Relaxing wasn’t easy with everything going on, but I tried. She released my hands, and I shook out my arms and shoulders and took several long breaths.
“Good… now look at me,” she coached. “Later, you can do this with just an image in your head, but to begin, it will help to have a model to work with.” I stood there and took her in… even if it wasn’t easy to see my grandmother this way.
As if reading my thoughts, she smiled and said, “If it’s easier, don’t think of me as your grandmother, just a model, a sexy model.”
I smirked and raised a brow.
She shrugged with a grin.
I relented and nodded.
“I find it helps to start at the top and work down. Reach up and stroke your hair. You’ll be able to make it longer or shorter, any color you like… eventually. For now, feel it in your hands.” She mirrored me as I combed my hands through my hair, stroking my locks.
“As you do this, look at my hair, see its color, its texture, how full and bouncy or straight or whatever it is. Then, as you feel your own hair, make it the same.”
Currently Oli’s hair was a shimmering golden blond, falling in lustrous waves to mid-back.
This wasn’t too hard. The hair I’d grown up with had been similar enough to that.
Having already done a little body-shifting with Tala, it didn’t take too much effort to match my hair to Oli’s.
The shift was subtle, my hair extending while becoming more voluminous.
When I lifted it up before me, I saw the shimmering golden hue.
Nice!
“Well done!” Grandma cheered. “Now your eyes. Touch your face, trace the socket and the brow and lids. Feel any lines or puffiness or bags, and all the while look at my eyes, the skin around them, the bridge of the nose, the color. Focus on me and match what you see.”
Her eyes were a stunningly clear cobalt blue, and the skin around her eyes infuriatingly smooth. I moved my fingers over my face, feeling myself shift, skin tightening, growing taut and silky.
“Good,” Oli purred. “You’re a natural.”
And in this manner, we slowly progressed over every part of my body: my ears and nose and cheeks and lips and chin.
Then lower, elongating my neck a little, which felt super odd, but I did it.
I’d already worked on my chest with Tala, but Grandma Oli had a way of making the work seem simple without turning it into a sexual thing, just…
tactile and clinical. We rounded my shoulders a little, narrowed my waist, tightened my abs, streamlined my hips and lengthened my legs.
And somehow, even though it felt damn weird, it didn’t feel… unnatural.
And when I was done, she led me to a long mirror in her front hall and I marveled at the change. I’d become her twin. And what was even more stunning was… there were no fluctuations. I was solid, set.
“How…?” I breathed.