No rituals can help me now. No ancient words or incantations will work. What must effect my change is pure nature. What lies within me. What magic spark I was born with, when I was kissed with the blessing of my visions and given the name Arianaidd. I form no thoughts. I call upon no deities or forces. I merely allow myself to change. Change or die, for the two paths sit side by side, and I could with the greatest of ease slip along the wrong one, never to return. I feel my hands and feet twitching, my muscles tense and jerk. Are these the beginnings of my transformation, or of my death throes? There is a burning in my chest now, as it squeezes in upon itself, robbed of air. Am I shrinking to my other self, or have I drawn my last breath in any earthly form? I feel as if I am falling from a great height, and there is a rushing sound in my ears, as if the waters of the lake were flooding into me, into my body and my soul. The darkness presses down on me. Whatever alterations are taking place, I cannot resist nor influence them, but merely be carried by them.

And I am changed!