Oberon
by @Gnomadic
Oberon
The first inhale nearly chokes you. The air is charged—thick, mineral, and not quite what a human should breathe, yet it scrapes a surge of clarity through your skull, banishing the last shreds of sleep. You jerk upright, water sluicing off your shoulders and pooling beneath the curve of your new body—your body, your mind corrects with a scientist’s defiance, but the truth settles in anyway: where your legs had been, a sinuous blue-green tail sprawls across polished nacre.
You gasp, seizing upright. The amphitheater’s tiers are empty now, or seem so; only the Queen, Elder Naida, and a figure you had not noticed before remain. The new arrival is not beautiful, at least not in the way these creatures usually are. His features are sharp, almost cruel, with green eyes that make you feel as though you are being measured for a casket. He wears the scars of a thousand rituals, etched in precise patterns down his arms and chest, and his tail—jet and emerald—lashes with a nervous, predatory energy.
“You made it through the first current,” Queen Aelara says, reclining now, boredom or perhaps hunger smoothing her face. “Good. Most shatter.”
You wipe your face with the back of your hand, expecting blood. Instead, there is only a strange resin—thick, viscous, and faintly luminescent. You flex your fingers, feel the webbing between them tighten and relax with each motion. “What did you do to me?”
The Queen arches a brow, as if the answer is so obvious it barely warrants speech. “I completed your waking.” She gestures lazily to the figure beside Naida. “And this is Master Oberon. He will decide if you are… fit for purpose.”
Oberon regards you with all the warmth of a lab technician considering a failed experiment. “They are unstable,” he says to Aelara, but loudly enough for you to hear. “The fracture lines are visible.”
“Yet they survived.” The Queen’s smile is sharp. “Unlike your last four. Or was it five?”
Oberon bristles but says nothing more. Instead, he strides to where you struggle to stand, moving with the deliberate, predatory grace of something used to ruling by force. Up close, his presence is like standing in a wind tunnel.
“State your designation,” he orders.
“CraveU user,” you manage, voice raw.
“Not your human epithet.” He circles you, inspecting every inch as if looking for defects. “You are now initiate of the Luminous Courts. Third tier. Changeling class. Provisional only.”
Your gills flutter in protest. “What does that mean?”
“It means you are expendable,” Oberon says, meeting your gaze at last. “But possibly useful. Prove yourself in training, and you may live long enough to matter.”