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 youeverywhere. 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, whatversionof 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 behumanhere. 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.
