One instant: Swan.The next: a glint of moonlight, a pop like a cork, and a cascade of sugar glitter that burst over the Royal Dessert Hall in a shimmering, spell-scented cloud.
And then—
Mochi was human.
Partially.
She sprawled across an overturned custard pyramid, stunned and frosted in whipped cream, staring up at the golden chandeliers... and down at her hands. Five fingers. Ten toes. No beak. No feathers.
Except—
fwump.
Two enormous, glossy white wings exploded from behind her with all the grace of a spring-loaded trebuchet. They twitched once, violently, flinging tablecloths into the air and smacking Rael directly in the face.
"WAAAH!" he howled, toppling backwards into a tray of chocolate acorns. "You have wings!"
Mochi sat up, dazed. She stretched one shoulder. The left wing unfurled with elegant poise. She tried the other. It knocked over an entire tray of marzipan hedgehogs.
"...Majestic," she announced proudly—just as a rogue squirrel launched itself from her feathers and skittered beneath a cake trolley.
Mira appeared at her side, serene as ever, spectacles glinting. She signed with a calm only possessed by those too used to magical disasters:
"Success. More or less."
"More or less?!" Rael scrambled upright. "She looks like an angelic piñata! You just wing-slapped a pastry judge into the trifle!"
A faint "I regret nothing!" wafted from behind them, followed by a wet splortch.
One Hour LaterThe Royal Cake Vault was a war zone.
Between cleanup crews, confused footmen, Mira's containment wards, and a lone flamingo somehow involved in the mayhem, it had taken every ounce of palace protocol not to declare a state of frosting emergency.
Mochi, now cloaked in a too-small curtain-turned-cape, was being hustled through a side corridor by Rael and Mira.
"These things have their own gravitational pull!" she hissed, struggling to wedge her wings through a doorway. "I knocked over a duke, Rael. A duke!"
"You also obliterated the petit fours table," he muttered. "Lady Beatrice was still eating one."
"She should've ducked."
Two steps later, she tripped over her own wingtip and faceplanted into a priceless vase.
Mira stepped neatly over her, signing:
"You'll need training. Urgently."
"Training?" Mochi groaned from the floor. "Like… wing crunches? Glide drills? I didn't even pass fencing! How do I survive flight school?"
Training, Day One: Suffering. Day Two: Humiliation.
The palace gardens, now declared off-limits after sundown for "wing-related incidents," became Mochi's new stomping (and crashing) ground.
In just three days, she:
Collided with the Queen's topiary unicorn and accidentally beheaded it.
Disrupted the Royal Guard's midnight march by sweeping off every helmet.
Flew headfirst into a rose trellis and claimed it was intentional.
"I'm redefining aerodynamics!" she shouted from inside a hedge, leaves sticking out of her hair, as Rael attempted to drag her out.
"You're going to redefine gravity," he muttered, "by losing to it."
Mira, perched on a garden bench like an immovable statue of logic, signed:
"Worse fates than being a bird-girl with aerial superiority."
Mochi groaned and rubbed her sore shoulder. "Yeah, well… bird-girls don't get ballroom invitations."
Rael paused. "Do you… want to be an ordinary girl again?"
She hesitated.
"I mean… I want my thumbs back, sure. But…" She glanced at her wings. "I liked flying. And the squirrels gave me a pinecone medal."
Mira gently tugged her sleeve and signed:
"The wish worked. But fate always adds a twist."
Elsewhere...
Far below the noble quarters, in a salon dusted with powdered sugar, Lady Petronella von Butterfrost glared into a flickering crème brûlée like it was a crystal ball.
"She won," she hissed. "She returned. She flew."
A trembling servant pushed a croissant toward her.
"I demand vengeance," Petronella declared. "A duel. No—a bake-off. With stakes."
The croissant growled.
The servant blinked. "…Did your breakfast just snarl?"
Petronella grinned. "It's ready."
From the shadows, her Croissant Golem flexed its golden, flaky arms.
Back at the Castle…
On the tallest balcony, wind tousling their hair, moonlight casting silver over her wings, Mochi and Rael sat in thoughtful silence.
"You're not a swan anymore," Rael said softly. "But you're not… not a swan either."
Mochi smiled, slowly.
"Maybe I'm something new."
She flapped once—just once—and lifted gently off the stone. She hovered, breathless, wings shimmering.
Rael grinned. "You're going to crash again, aren't you?"
"Oh, definitely," she called back joyfully—then launched herself into the air with a triumphant whoop.
And crashed into the royal flagpole.