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Some days, Cressida feels as though she is living somebody else’s life.
Her feet grow worn and calloused from walking. Her dress starts to hang looser. Her skin itches from washing with spells and muddy water. Her horns dig in when she tries to sleep.
But sleep she does. She is too wearied at the end of each day to do anything else.
In her dreams, she is herself once more. She dreams of softness: of the quiet rustling shh shh shh silk makes as she walks—of the rich fruitiness of a fine wine against her lips—of biting down into berries dipped in cream, the sharp-smooth salt of cheese, white sugar melting on her tongue—of sinking into layered mattresses, feather and flock and straw.
She wakes against hard ground, with the memory of gold’s cold weight held between her fingers.
Changes creep in, and keep creeping. She is helpless to stop them. Her form is twisted, is turned, is turned against her. The horns, the marking on her palm, the thorns like claws tipping her fingers. Much more, and she will become monstrous, unrecognisable.
Smaller things, too: her cheekbones more pronounced after weeks without rich meals, freckles popping up over the ivory skin she had been so proud of.
Every puddle reflects her new face. She wonders if her old friends would recognise her.
She does not wonder the same of her customers. She does not think of her customers. They are gold in her hands, they are numbers in a balance book. Not people. Not to her.
(If she truly saw them as people, even she could not stand beneath the weight of her guilt.)
When did Team North-West become people to her? When did she realise she would grieve if they were gone?
This, too, is new. She, who has never valued anything that cannot be counted in coin, has at last discovered a different kind of worth. Willowfine’s grace, Lug’s strength, Happen’s candour, Robin’s kindness, Morven’s power.
They are still alien to her, as she is alien to them. But still, she feels something settle, deep within: respect, for these five strangers who are becoming—not friends, not yet, but companions.
When did she change? She cannot pinpoint the moment. But change she has.
She is still herself; she is not herself; she will never be herself again.
It always hurts, becoming something new.