Gradually, even the pure-hearted knight was subsumed and came to wish for it. The grip - the allure - of his draconic destiny throttled the valiant resolve of Tiktaalik to cleanse himself of the curse with a dreadful patience...

...but perhaps even he hadn't anticipated the peculiar manner in which his new form would manifest - the she-dragon who had precipitated it all certainly had not. Perhaps it arose from some kink in the magic, a subtle deviation that widened further and further from the intended course as he progressed. Perhaps it was wretched Korelian who, for all his devotion to saving the young knight's soul, had inevitably contaminated the magic somehow with his ceaseless, urgent experiments to try and excise the essence of the cursed helm.

Or perhaps, as the smirking wyvern would eventually come to think, the draconic shard in the helm had been something so much more insignificant... a mere spark that had roused the extinguished fires of a tainted bloodline, and catalyzed his transformation; his awakening and glorious apotheosis...

...a disturbance in the water sweeps aside the distant, foggy memories; a moment more, and they're forgotten. Instinct distills the movement from the murk; Tiktaalik lashes, feels the cold, viscous blood ooze between his teeth, and languidly submerges again... into the depths...
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Dun dun dun! I've been a huge fan of the immensely talented  ophryon, whose art reminds me very much of Tony DiTerlizzi's work (*swoons!*), so I couldn't resist the chance to the final apex (or nadir?) of his transformation into fish/wyvern/thing. I kinda like to pretend that's a shark in his mouth...