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And indeed, the pressure on her mind seemed to lighten. The weight. The urgency. They didn’t vanish, but they felt abruptly more manageable. Like she could hold on a bit longer, perhaps.

Like the burning sun in her hand wasn’t about to reduce her to cinders.

She could feel her body again, as well. Her breath, too.

And Chergoa was there. Right there. Closer than ever before. It was so odd. Warm and welcome, but odd.

Thoughts began to stir, and she couldn’t even tell who they belonged to.

Of course she couldn’t. That was kinda the whole point, right? Silly girl. Stop being such a worrywart, already.

This pressing mutation. They could manage it. A burning sun in her hand, huh? No. That was the wrong way of perceiving it. Self-evidently problematic. Easily fixed, though. Perception was a simple enough thing to manipulate.

Not an orb, anymore. Now it was a little kid waiting in line. And not just any kid. It was Emiliana herself. A child, standing there patiently. Obedient. Calm. Not in a rush.

Familiar, eh? Being rebellious was overrated, after all. She’d always felt that way, hadn’t she? She’d learned how not to behave from Gema. And maybe Cisco, too.

Agh. Just thinking about them hurt, though. As annoying as they were, she ached to see them again. Ramira, too.

Marcos could wait a little longer. The brat deserved it.

Then again, perhaps it helped a bit that she already knew that he and Ramira were both safe with Hector and Papa. Less reason to worry about them.

Focus. It wouldn’t do to leave baby Emiliana waiting for long, now would it? Wait, she was a baby now? Not even a kid? Eh, sure, why not?

Together, they knelt down and took the child into their arms. A loving embrace. Nothing to fear. No worry to be found.

And finally, the change arrived. All at once. Still overwhelming.

The child wasn’t a child, after all. That was just a trick of perception. It had desires of its own. A will and a demand.

But they were also hers. She understood that now. Chergoa knew what to look for. When to push. When to pull. When to welcome. When to resist.

Of the four little horns that were stuck on Emiliana’s face, the two higher ones began to bud. Specks of green sprouted from them, slowly, slowly, ever slowly, turning gradually into vines and leaves, dangling down her cheeks and also splitting off to extend around her head. They reached behind her ears and attached themselves there, right into her flesh, where new horns--tinier ones--grew out as connecting points.