Tharja had no way to explain away this nightmare. Even if she explained the truth, that one of her love spells had backfired horribly and mistakenly infused her with an all encompassing need to do this ridiculous act AND given her an enchanted form to physically be able to do it, it wouldn’t spare her the embarrassment. No, here she was, the most sought after dark mage in Plegia for both her power and her form… impaling her face against the top end of a pine tree, happily swallowing it whole.

Damn that old tome! How could it possibly let her cast something so ridiculously off kilter from her goal!? She could only lament her foolishness as her cursed, inhuman throat stretched around the rough wood of the conifer and its prickly pine needles. Tharja was expecting this to hurt. Really, that seemed hardly like a strange assumption given she was packing inedible wood into her maw. But no, the demonic strength powering her digesting system and mouth found the task not the slightest bit uncomfortable. No, the elder dragon stomach she’d hexed herself with was making eating something as horrid as a tree taste like biting toffee. The glass ornaments outright tasted like sprinkles! It almost was an enjoyable sensation like stuffing her face with christmas cookies. Then she remembered the whole “oh, it’s a goddamn christmas tree” part and the absolute humiliation resumed.

More and more of the festive plant fell into her gluttonous maw, every fixing and bit of tinsel slamming down her insatiable throat. Oh how badly wish Tharja wish she needed to hurl. What she wouldn’t give for some semblance of her body to recognize this as the ridiculous otherworldly act it was and spare her a single moment more of this shameful conifer consumption. It never came. She was out of control, stretching her jaw to the point of nearly breaking, choking more and more down like an anaconda. How she could chew the tough wood was a mystery. How her body could even contain it in a modest stomach bulge that looked no worse than a pregnancy was unreal.

In mere minutes, it was over. Tharja had eaten the tasty Tannenbaum and left nothing but naked presents exposed for her fellow units. How she’d ever rid the camp of this memory would be an ordeal. A mind control spell? Forceful amnesia? Should she just finally kill them all? Probably.