There were a couple reasons that Jacob had misgivings about this tarot reading. One was that he had always been skeptical about fortune telling. They were always so vague that they were “conveniently” likely to be at least somewhat true for just about anyone, and those fortunes told about more concrete things tended to backfire on the teller when they didn’t come to pass. Or at least, such was his experience every time so far. So the first reason was from personal experience. The other reason was that the reading was being conducted by a talking black cat.

Nonetheless, he sat on the cushion opposite the cat, who took off her witch-esque hat and laid it next to herself. She looked a bit like she was taking it off with her paw, but it didn’t look like her paw actually made contact with the hat. Was she using magic? It seemed likely, since next a card came flying out of the hat, carried by an invisible force and set down between the two. It was the card of the Moon.

“Okay, so the moon! Um...” the cat seemed to struggle with the meaning. Was she new at this? “Well, the moon turns people into werewolves, right?” Jacob facepalmed, but the cat continued. “Oh, that’s it! You’re going to turn into something!”

Out of the hat next flew another card. Already this tarot reading was proving to be a farce, Jacob could already tell that even with his limited tarot knowledge, but he didn’t want to leave before he’d seen just how low this would go.

The next card to be set down was the Wheel of Fortune. “Ooh, this’ll be fun!” the cat said, her hat flying up, before suddenly out came a massive roulette-like wheel from the opening of the hat, landing with a loud CLANG next to the two, making Jacob jump. The wheel looked a lot like the one on Wheel of Fortune, but he couldn’t get a good look at what was on it before it had started spinning.

It spun for a while, as Jacob tried to will his heart to stop pounding so hard, until finally it slowed and stopped, landing on a spot on the wheel with a card. They all had cards on them, in fact. He should have seen that coming, but what he didn’t see coming was that the card was not a tarot card, but instead a card from Magic: the Gathering. It was a Sprite Dragon card.

“Ooh, that’s it! Your fortune is that you’re gonna become a fairy dragon!”

Jacob gave a heavy sigh. “Somehow, I doubt...” He stopped short of completing that sentence, however, when he realized that his nose was starting to turn green and scaly. Soon, his mouth and nose pushed forward into a draconic snout, green on top and a paler green below. He rubbed his scaly muzzle with his hands, confirming what he was seeing.

“It’s working! I knew I could predict the future!” the cat said, hopping around cheerfully. Though, Jacob was more inclined to call it “shaping” than “predicting”, himself.

Jacob wanted to be upset, but he found that he couldn’t. A part of him was scared and a part of him was embarrassed to be turning into a fairy creature, but... he’d always wanted to be a mighty dragon. And even a cute little fairy dragon was still mighty, right? He willfully decided to ignore the fact that the card that had revealed was a 1/1 creature card.

His wings were certainly mighty, at least. Contrary to their delicate, shimmery purple butterfly-esque appearance, his wing effortlessly burst from the back of his shirt, tearing it to tatters as they did so. He gave his wings a couple of test flaps. He felt like he could definitely soar through the air with mighty wings like these! Even if it did hurt the mighty feeling a bit that it gave of shimmery light whenever he moved his wings, or even when his wings were stationary... and for that matter, come to think of it, his scales looked a bit shimmery too, though not as much.

He looked down, finding that the transformation was proceeding nicely. His belly and chest were now covered in scales, a paler green in front. He heard a mighty rip and felt his partially-destroyed pants fall around his legs as he felt something forming on his body behind him. He looked back to see a long lizard-like green tail forming behind him, the underside of the tail being the same pale green that his belly was. He swished his tail. It, too, felt quite strong! He was becoming mighty after all!

Just then, two faintly-glowing yellow bulb-like things dropped into view, attached to something long and green. He felt the smooth bulbs, then felt along the green curved things, realizing these things were attached to his head. It seemed that unlike most dragons, which had horns on their heads, he had grown antennae.

He looked at his arms and hands, finding them to be covered in green scales, his hands looking like a mix between human hands and draconic forepaws, complete with somewhat small yellow claws. He looked down, finding that his legs were now covered in green scales, his shoes seeming to deform and strain. He knew what would happen next, and sure enough his shoes burst open, revealing his new yellow-clawed draconic hind paws. And with that, it seemed his transformation was complete.

But just as he was thinking that, suddenly he was in midair. He squeaked in surprise and flapped his wings, before gliding back down. He looked around, finding that his surroundings looked much larger, including the cat which now towered over him. Did... did he just shrink to the size of a ferret? But he was supposed to be mighty!

The cat, meanwhile, was not paying attention. Her head was poking into the hat, as if searching for something. Just as he was about to ask, she pulled out a card, this one the King of Diamonds. She set the cat down, which had only mild teeth marks. “Ta-daaaa! You have lots of diamond treasure!” She paused for a bit, looking around. “Uh, somewhere...”

Jacob shrugged, starting to walk out of the cave as the cat wandered away apparently quite aimlessly in search of the treasure. After a few steps, though, he stepped on something. He looked down and saw that he had stepped on a Yu-Gi-Oh card. It was Dimensional Fissure. Suddenly, he found himself falling into the card, then surrounded by darkness before falling onto a hard surface.

He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the darkness around him as he found himself in a cave. At one end was the soft glow of the distant exit. From the looks of it, this cave was very high up, perhaps even on a mountain. He looked around and found that, deeper in the cave, there was a pile of... it couldn’t be...

It was a large pile of diamonds of various colors, cut into various shapes. It was stacked about a foot tall, a rather small hoard for a dragon, but to him it was truly enormous. It was so pretty, so shiny... and it was all his! He flew onto the pile, laying contentedly atop it. He may not have been physically powerful like most dragons, but he could certainly get used to this.